Of the seven Pistons who mattered in last season’s incredible first-round series against the Knicks, two have left the team for more serious circumstances (gambling investigation; Sacramento), and one has left the team for greener pastures (Denver). The other four have played, but each missed time. Meanwhile, after suffering a broken fibula on New Year’s Day last season, Jaden Ivey is now back to playing minutes off the bench, and joining a guard rotation filled out by various underachieving University of Michigan alumni. The thinking going into the season was that Cade Cunningham was going to be unreliable, it might take some time for the team to get going due to a thin backcourt and a general lack of shooting, weaknesses demonstrated by the fact that Marcus Sasser’s injury was recorded as a legitimate problem. Yet they are 15-2 on a 13-game winning streak, with the league’s eighth-best offense and fourth-best defense.
There are many interesting arguments to be made here and there is 80 percent of the regular season left to make them, so I will limit the scope of this blog to Jalen Duren, the player who epitomizes the internal improvement that has sent the Pistons to the top of the conference. Duren went 13th overall in the 2022 NBA Draft, which was about perfect for the combination of his physical profile (perfect) and skill level (low). He was basically Dwight Howard, with slightly longer arms and significantly less proprioception, and so he spent three years finishing lobs, playing straight around the basket, and cooking whenever he had to do anything in open space. By last season’s playoffs, you could start to see some growth in that end zone in particular, as the Knicks targeted him repeatedly. His performance in the series was mostly poor, yet he still averaged more than four offensive rebounds per contest; More importantly, he got a quick lesson in playing the short roll against Tom Thibodeau coverage and defending the really tricky Jalen Brunson-Karl-Anthony Towns pick-and-roll.
This year, Duren has applied those lessons and then some. Duren has been kicking everyone’s ass by expanding his game and adding on his ample muscle. After basically not dribbling the basketball in three seasons, Duren is showing an extended floor game, attacking guys off the bounce, creating advantages on his own, and even blowing by slower defenders. It’s still shocking to see him stand up and hit a midrange jumper or knock down a crossover for a dunk, but his drive game has been a legitimate weapon for the Pistons. This largely reflects the game’s evolution towards distributed opportunities to run and play with the ball, and while most beneficiaries have been undersized as ball-handlers given new responsibilities like Collin Gillespie, Jaden McDaniel and Deni Avdija, Duren is so physically imposing that even he can survive off the dribble. You can see it in his improved scoring numbers (20.3 points per game, up from 11.8), though the most obvious improvement is in how often he gets to the line (7.4 times per game, more than double the 3.1 he posted last year).
Watch Duran for a game, however, and what jumps off the screen is less his dribbling than his physicality. Duren appears to be bound by a law of gravity unlike everyone else. He has broad shoulders, he leaps with astonishing agility, and no one can overthrow him. Duren is a capable anchor on defense, but clogs up the rim for opponents: Detroit allows the second-fewest rim attempts and second-lowest percentage at the rim in the NBA, because that’s where Duren is. He ranks third in the NBA in offensive rebounds per game, behind two offensive rebounding specialists, second in true shooting, and is beloved by all overall advanced metrics, which portray him, unfairly, as a top-five player in the entire NBA. The number that captures him is one of the most physically imposing players in the NBA, someone who causes problems on both sides of the ball and on the glass, no matter who his opponent is.
Combine that physicality with a more sophisticated floor game, and you have a first-time All-Star. Duren coach JB Bickerstaff deserves a lot of credit for recruiting his big man to spread his wings. This type of raw, athletic big man is one of the harder ideals to develop, and after years of essentially using Duren as a battering ram, the Pistons have transformed him into a big man who is capable of playing the modern game while also beating opponents with gusto.
There’s a neo-Bad Boys thing going on in Detroit, starting with Duren. One gets the impression that the Pistons are miserable playing against, even with Cade Cunningham bullying people with determination and flying tackles to the weak side. With Duren now under great pressure from you and in bad trouble, it has become difficult to deal with everything. It’s important to remember that Duren has just turned 22 and clearly has more room to grow. With that athleticism, he can do anything.
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