The Detroit Pistons don’t need a lesson in how contract drama can linger. The Philadelphia 76ers have already lived through that movie, and it did not end well for a talented core that once looked tight and promising.
That’s why the noise around Jalen Duren matters, even if plenty of it is being inflated from the outside. An X post claimed Duren “believes he's in a higher tier than the Thompson twins,” but that was not a direct quote from Duren, and it was not a quote from the September 21 Athletic report that broke down his negotiations with Detroit.
That piece compared Ausar Thompson’s new $155 million deal to Duren’s reported $200 million ask and suggested it was “quite clear” Duren sees his value in a higher tier because of his All-Star and All-NBA accolades. That’s speculation, though, and Duren still hasn’t publicly laid out his real position.
The problem for the Pistons is that this kind of situation can start small and get messy fast. The 76ers know that better than most.
Their Ben Simmons-Joel Embiid tension was surrounded by rumors long before Simmons’ very public holdout, with talk that the two didn’t get along or that one was jealous of the other. Eventually, the whispers hardened into something much bigger.
Simmons and Embiid left on bad terms, and a young Sixers group that once seemed connected ended up with two cornerstone players drifting apart.
Detroit also has to be careful not to let the actual negotiations do damage on their own. The front office deserves credit for drawing a hard line instead of maxing out a player who looked average at his best in the playoffs. But hardball has a price if it starts to chip away at trust inside the room.
The Sixers went through a similar stretch a few years later with James Harden. They chose not to give him the long-term contract he wanted, even though he had built strong chemistry with Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.
That decision turned into another standoff in the Daryl Morey era and eventually forced Philadelphia to break up the trio. Harden went years without speaking to Morey or Embiid.
The Sixers recovered, but only after going down a road they never meant to travel.
What happens next with Duren and the Pistons is still unclear. But if Detroit needs a warning sign, Philadelphia’s post-process history is sitting right there.
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