Detroit’s offseason has to answer for one specific collapse. The Pistons won 60 games last season, their first 60-win season in 20 years and their first No. 1 seed in the East since 2006-07, then lost Game 7 of the conference semifinals 125-94 at home to Cleveland on May 17, a blowout in which Cade Cunningham scored just 13 points and went scoreless for most of the second half before getting pulled once the game was decided. That gap, between the best regular season the franchise has produced in two decades and a home elimination that lopsided, is the entire premise behind what Detroit did this summer, and whether it did enough is now a live, public question.
Jalen Duren
Jalen Duren Contract Talks: Pistons Raise Offer to $190 Million
The Detroit Pistons have raised their offer to Jalen Duren to roughly $190 million over five years, according to league-source reporting from The Athletic. The new figure materially narrows the gap from Detroit’s earlier proposal, but Duren is still seeking at least $200 million.
The movement changes the status of negotiations that previously looked like a wider annual-salary standoff. Detroit has improved its position. Duren’s camp has not publicly lowered its target, leaving the sides close enough for a deadline to matter but not close enough to call a deal imminent.