Pacers back on top? | Central Division Grades
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the NBA Daily live stream here on YouTube. And if you listen on the podcast, we're there, too. I'm Dave DeFore here with Espera Henne and Zena Cato. We're continuing our summer division offseason grade series. We're going to the Central Division. Big time yikes in that Central Division. We'll get to that in a second. How's everybody doing? Doing well. Almost done with these divisional.
Yeah, yeah. We're grinding through them. Honestly, can't complain. You know, a little bit of live August podcasting. What can you say about it? Very excited.
I feel like we should all be on a beach somewhere for this. I'm going to put that into the budget for next summer. Like, we'll get a beach house like MTV, you know. Oh, my gosh. Go back. Poolside. Mm-hmm. That'd be great. All right. Well, let's jump in, guys, because the Detroit Pistons are fascinating at this point. They are the ones that I wrote yikes in the rundown for for this great series, because I just feel like their their offseason has been fantastic. Pretty rough. The Jalen Duren situation is ongoing. He's still a restricted free agent. I have to assume that at this point, the Pistons have to be sweating that he might sign that qualifying offer and just go into the year and looking ahead at next summer as a free agent, guys.
So scary. They want, he wants five years, 287 million last that I heard. And the, the tough part is like, technically he's earned it all NBA. This guy has absolutely earned every dollar of that. It just sucks because the resonating factor of, or the way you think about Jalen Dern is how he performed in the playoffs. And that wasn't a great taste to leave in people's mouths, but ultimately like they have to make a decision and, And now you wonder this strain that's been caused over the course of the summer, even if you do give him the money, what does that look like being played out throughout the season? If you don't give him the money, what does that look like? He signs a qualifying offer and he's kind of just playing to get out.
All of it sets up for a very awkward dynamic or tense dynamic for the Pistons, which is awful considering everything we talked about with the Pistons being this chemistry, like brotherhood type of team, very similar to what we see in OKC. And now you've got, once again, money sometimes being the factor that can shake things up a little bit.
Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of thinking about this in two different ways, and I agree with you, Zena. It's like putting that pressure on this young team to have to deal with something like this, especially given the fact that Jalen Duren, to your point, all-star, all-NBA player, had a really, really disappointing playoffs, but is still super young. And I think that's something to bank on, especially considering how good he plays next to Cade Cunningham. But the thing you have to wonder is, okay, nobody has money this summer anymore. Nobody has the money to spend. So that $57.5 million super duper max kind of contract extension that he wants to get out there is not available. Is there a happy medium that him and the Pistons can land on?
Because through their offseason moves, which we're going to get into – they have created some space for themselves. Like, I think it's like $40 million that they can pay him something along those lines. Is that satisfactory for a guy who's looking for $55 million? Um,
What were the Pistons' biggest offseason missteps and the Jalen Duren contract dilemma?
I'm very curious to see if that happens, because on the other side, sort of like a compounding effect to this Jalen Duren situation is they lost Isaiah Stewart. They lost Tobias Harris. And I know they've supplemented some shooting with Isaiah Joe, Gary Harris. But it's just like you're missing these key pieces to the cog of a 60 win team. Right. And acting like you can just kind of sub in, peace out, peace in. I don't think that's something that's replicatable. And I would say, I would take it a step further and say, if they go into next season with this exact same situation and the Jalen Dern qualifying offer is taken, then they're a very, very clear team to take a step back.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:04–3:37
2
What were the Pistons' biggest offseason missteps and the Jalen Duren contract dilemma?
3:37–14:36
3
How could losing Isaiah Stewart and other role players affect Detroit's championship ceiling?
14:36–31:51
4
What did Cleveland add this summer and will Mario Hezonja replace Dean Wade's defensive value?
31:51–40:07
5
How will the Cavaliers' payroll above the second tax apron limit in-season roster moves?
40:07–43:26