NBA training camps are around the corner, with most of the league’s 30 teams scheduled to hold their respective media days on Monday, with camps officially opening on Tuesday.
Before we close the book on the 2026 offseason, there are a few subplots to resolve, including what exactly will happen with the player who ranked atop our list of this summer’s top 50 free agents.
In the space below, we’re considering what to make of the latest updates on Jalen Duren’s restricted free agency, examining the near-identical extensions signed by Keyonte George and Ausar Thompson, and touching on a couple other minor storylines ahead of the NBA preseason.
Let’s dive in…
Jalen Duren’s restricted free agency
NBA training camps are around the corner, with most of the league’s 30 teams scheduled to hold their respective media days on Monday, with camps officially opening on Tuesday.
Before we close the book on the 2026 offseason, there are a few subplots to resolve, including what exactly will happen with the player who ranked atop our list of this summer’s top 50 free agents.
In the space below, we’re considering what to make of the latest updates on Jalen Duren’s restricted free agency, examining the near-identical extensions signed by Keyonte George and Ausar Thompson, and touching on a couple other minor storylines ahead of the NBA preseason.
Let’s dive in…
Jalen Duren’s restricted free agency
Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription
Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Luke Adams
Join exclusive weekly live chats with Arthur Hill
Remove ads and support our writers.
Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren are two huge reasons – perhaps the two main reasons – why the Pistons went from being a 14-win team in 2023/24 to a 60-win team just two seasons later in ’25/26. But the fact that Cunningham made the All-NBA third team in 2025 and Duren did so in 2026 has been both a blessing and a curse for the franchise.
The Pistons’ front office was undoubtedly thrilled to see Cunningham emerge as an All-Star and a legitimate MVP candidate in his fourth NBA season, but his place on the All-NBA third team ensured that his five-year rookie scale extension, which included “Rose rule” language, began at 30% of the salary cap in 2025/26 instead of just 25%. That bumped the overall value of the contract from about $224MM to $269MM, a difference of about $9MM annually.
Cunningham’s increased earnings are likely one reason why the Pistons feel the need to ensure they don’t overpay Duren in restricted free agency this summer. And after the big man claimed a spot on the 2026 All-NBA third team, he also became eligible to receive a maximum-salary deal worth up to 30% of the cap instead of 25%. While it doesn’t sound like Duren’s camp has pushed for the full $287MM he’s eligible for, the fact that his five-year max is technically that high instead of coming in around $239MM presumably resulted in a larger gap between the two sides’ starting points in negotiations.
The latest reports on Duren’s negotiations with the Pistons indicate that Detroit’s offer has increased to $200MM over five years, with The Athletic suggesting that offer is fully guaranteed. That $200MM figure is an important one for two reasons.
For one, reporting all summer has suggested that the 22-year-old was seeking an annual average salary of at least $40MM, and the Pistons have apparently reached that threshold.
Secondly, Detroit’s offer now exceeds what Duren could make over the next five seasons if he were to accept his one-year qualifying offer and then signs a four-year, maximum-salary contract with a new team next summer. In that scenario, he’d make $9,615,393 in 2026/27 and then sign for a projected $189,200,000 next offseason, for a five-year total of $198,815,393.
So why hasn’t Duren accepted the $200MM offer? I don’t have any inside information, so I can only speculate. But I think there are a couple factors in play here.
First, the type of season Duren just had would typically have been awarded in the past with a maximum-salary contract starting at 25% of the cap, which would be worth $239MM. From 2020-25, 21 players signed rookie scale extensions worth the max. That group included players like Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, Michael Porter Jr., Darius Garland, Scottie Barnes, Franz Wagner, and Paolo Banchero, each of whom has still never had an All-NBA season.
However, wary of the impact of the tax aprons under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams seem to be negotiating harder than ever with their rising stars this offseason. Rockets guard Amen Thompson is another example of a player who probably would’ve received a max deal in the past. Instead, he agreed to a five-year, $208MM rookie scale extension with a 10% trade kicker.
You could argue that front offices are right to make better use of their leverage in these contract negotiations. After all, several of those previous maximum-salary contracts didn’t work out great for the teams involved. One recent Pistons example serves as a Duren cautionary tale — Detroit signed center Andre Drummond to a five-year, maximum-salary deal as a restricted free agent in 2016 when he was coming off his first All-Star and All-NBA (third team) season. Drummond didn’t make another All-NBA team and his value eventually declined to the point where he was bought out during the final year of that contract.
Like Drummond, Duren isn’t an elite defender and isn’t the type of shooter who will stretch out opposing defenses. But he’s already a more dynamic scorer than Drummond ever was, and he’s athletic and mobile enough to become much better than him defensively as well.
While Duren’s representatives likely resigned themselves early in the summer to the fact that the Pistons won’t be putting a maximum-salary offer on the table, they still want to get their client the best deal possible. But as a restricted free agent without any viable rival suitors, the big man’s leverage is extremely limited.
The best way for Duren’s camp to apply its limited leverage is to make a compelling case that they don’t need the Pistons’ help to get paid. That means selling the team on the idea that he could sign his one-year qualifying offer in order to play elsewhere. There has understandably been skepticism that Duren would turn down a guaranteed nine-figure payday in favor of a $9.6MM qualifying offer, so perhaps the rumors suggesting that he prefers to play elsewhere represent his agency’s attempts to present that QO pathway as more realistic.
The negotiating strategy hasn’t been popular among Pistons fans, but it seems like it’s working. Since the start of September, the value of Detroit’s five-year offer to Duren has reportedly increased from $175MM to $190MM and now to $200MM. Each step of the way, there have been fans and pundits suggesting Duren is making a mistake not to accept the team’s latest offer. But the deadline to accept his qualifying offer won’t arrive until October 1. It’s reasonable to assume the Pistons won’t make their best, final offer until close to that deadline.
The biggest question is whether this is just a standard (albeit tough) negotiation process or whether real animosity has developed between the two sides. Leaks suggesting bad blood shouldn’t always be trusted, since they could be a negotiation strategy, but it’s certainly possible there’s some merit to those reports.
To illustrate that point, it’s worth revisiting two RFA negotiations from last summer. Josh Giddey spent most of the summer in a standoff with the Bulls before eventually signing a four-year, $100MM contract on September 24, while Jonathan Kuminga and the Warriors engaged in a three-month stare-down that resulted in a two-year, $46.8MM deal on Sept. 30.
Both of those negotiations were described in similar terms to the Duren talks. Kuminga’s fractured relationship with the Warriors was well-documented and ultimately led to a trade sending him to Atlanta about four months after he signed that contract. But Giddey, whose negotiations were described at one point by Jake Fischer as the “most strained” of any of last summer’s restricted free agents, was able to put the contract situation behind him and seems content in Chicago a year later. At this point, his protracted restricted free agency feels like a distant memory.
So will Duren’s relationship with the Pistons take the Kuminga or the Giddey route? I still think there’s a scenario in which Duren signs, say, a five-year, $208MM deal (matching Thompson’s) with the Pistons within the next few days, then talks to reporters next week about how much he loves playing in Detroit and how happy is that the two sides were able to work something out. I can imagine Duren, Pistons head of basketball operations Trajan Langdon, and head coach JB Bickerstaff all downplaying any contentiousness that developed in contract talks and expressing excitement about the center’s long-term future with the Pistons.
But there’s still a chance things could go sideways, too, leading to Duren wearing a Kings or Bucks jersey by the fall of 2027. It shouldn’t be much longer until we find out, one way or the other, which way this is headed.
Keyonte George vs. Ausar Thompson
It’s not uncommon for two or more rookie scale extensions to be worth the same amount, but it still struck me as noteworthy when Jazz guard Keyonte George and Pistons wing Ausar Thompson reached agreements on nearly identical deals within eight hours of one another last Friday.
George’s five-year extension with Utah has a base value of $155MM, with another $2.5MM in total incentives ($500K per year), while Thompson’s five-year contract with Detroit is reportedly worth exactly $155MM.
On the surface, George and Thompson aren’t similar players at all, but the Jazz and Pistons are actually making pretty similar bets, committing $31MM per year to players who are elite on one end of the floor and have been liabilities on the other.
George has emerged as a legitimate offensive weapon in Utah, averaging 23.6 points and 6.1 assists per game in a breakout third year, but he was one of the NBA’s very worst defensive players in his first two years in the league and wasn’t a whole lot better last season.
Thompson, meanwhile, finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season and has a strong case to be viewed as the NBA’s best defensive player among non-bigs. However, while he can single-handedly alter an opponent’s offensive game plan, he’s essentially been a non-factor on offense himself. He averaged 9.9 points per game last season and has made just 38-of-186 three-pointers (20.4%) since entering the league.
George’s offense and Thompson’s defense are strong enough that they don’t need to be above-average on the other end of the court to provide positive value. But in order for the Jazz or Pistons to feel like they got a bargain, they’ll need to see at least some improvements from these guys.
I’m optimistic that will happen. George made a little progress last season, and having Darryn Peterson alongside him in the backcourt to share ball-handling and play-making responsibilities should allow him to exert more energy defensively. As for Thompson, his twin brother Amen has provided a template for how to provide offensive value without becoming a knock-down shooter. While it would help if Ausar could knock down an open three-pointer, becoming a more effective play-maker, cutter, and finisher would be extremely useful for a team that needs a reliable secondary creator alongside Cunningham.
Remaining rookie scale extension candidates
With the Thompson twins, George, and Victor Wembanyama having signed, there are still 18 players eligible for rookie scale extensions who could sign new contracts by the October 19 deadline.
Some of those guys aren’t actually realistic extension candidates. For instance, I don’t think the Grizzlies will be rushing to extend Jordan Hawkins or Kris Murray.
Still, there are a handful of guys worth keeping an eye on. I’m hoping to take a deeper dive into the remaining rookie scale extension candidates in a Front Office article in the coming weeks, but for now I’ll single out Magic guard Anthony Black, Hornets forward Brandon Miller, Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski, and Thunder guard Cason Wallace as the top players to watch, with Bucks forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. as a wild card to keep an eye on if he impresses his new team in the coming weeks.
The Nuggets’ Cam Whitmore addition
Denver’s roundabout acquisition of Cam Whitmore was a reminder of why it’s important to consider incoming salary – or lack thereof – when evaluating what a team gave up or received in a trade for a particular player.
In the five-team sign-and-trade deal that sent Peyton Watson from the Nuggets to the Cavaliers, for example, Denver acquired a first-round pick and a second-round pick for Watson. But the Nuggets also had enough leverage to require the Cavaliers to take on Whitmore’s unwanted $5.46MM expiring contract from the Wizards.
Since they were operating over the second tax apron, the Nuggets literally couldn’t take on Whitmore’s contract without shedding additional salary, but it’s not as if the Cavs wanted to absorb that salary. They eventually had to waive and stretch Whitmore and then sign an unheralded draft-and-prospect from Spain as their 14th man in order to stay below their first-apron hard cap. Based on their current cap situation, the Cavs now won’t be able to sign a 15th man until the second week of April. That was part of the price they had to pay for Watson.
The Nuggets, meanwhile, weren’t in position to acquire Whitmore in that Watson trade, but they were able to land the former first-round pick on a two-way contract, which won’t count against the salary cap.
It remains to be seen how he’ll perform in Denver, but Whitmore certainly represents a worthwhile flier for a team that could use some scoring punch off its bench. The fourth-year forward looks like a much savvier addition on that two-way deal than he would have if he were taking up $5.46MM of cap room.