For some, it won't matter what Jalen Duren said. Or what he does in the regular season. And on that point, we'll agree.
So will he.
Do it in the playoffs or else ... no one will believe. Do it in the playoffs and make everyone forget about the five-year, $200 million contract he just signed. Oh, Duren, the Detroit Pistons' 22-year-old center, didn't say those exact words. He didn't have to.
But he said similar words.
Which is the takeaway from his first media session since the season ended, and the first since he signed that contract Thursday, Oct. 1, a couple hours before the NBA's deadline. Well, that was one takeaway from Sunday's news conference.
Another?
When someone chooses silence, as Duren did all summer, the world quickly supplies the noise.
He learned that the hard way. To his credit, he said Sunday he'd choose silence again, no matter how hard it was at times to listen to others fill in the narrative.
"I took a step back from everything," he said at the Pistons' practice facility, sharing a table with Trajan Langdon, the team's president of basketball operations. "That was to get my head right."
Duren knows he wasn't good enough during the playoffs. He said it then. He said it again Sunday afternoon, just to make sure folks understand he is self-aware.
"Humbling," he called his postseason performance, when his numbers dipped by half from the regular season, though he didn't need the numbers to tell the story. He didn't look right from the moment Game 1 against Orlando tipped:
Hesitant. Slow. At times, sped up.
Defeated.
He found himself in Game 6 against Cleveland in the second round, but that was 13 games in, and then he couldn't consolidate the performance in Game 7. Then again, his teammates couldn't, either.
Duren spent the summer working to make sure it doesn't happen again.
"There was a lot of film that was being watched over the summer ... trying to learn myself and just come to that realization and look in the mirror like, I do need to get better," he said.
How?
And what, specifically, did he work on?
"Tightening up shot mechanics, working on my body, first and foremost. Making sure I’m in the best shape possible, being able to get up and down the floor as many times as need be, being able to get out of pick and rolls with speed and being able to jump and move."
He didn't focus on one thing, but on lots of things.
"Just my entire game in general, on both sides of the ball," he said.
Duren opened the news conference by loosely reading from words he'd written. He spoke for nearly six minutes, going off-script at times, looking out to the reporters, to the cameras, to you. He sounded relieved and excited and heartfelt, and he sounded like himself.
"I'm not trying to run from anything," he said.
Especially Detroit, where he reiterated he'd always wanted to be. As he said last year, and the year before, and the year before.
The rest was just business. Negotiations. A tug-of-war with the organization that, he acknowledged, had to do right by itself, as he had to do right by himself.
Would he change anything, someone asked, considering the stories that filled the void and the noise that turned against him?
No, he said. He needed to go through it. Learn from it. Much like he promises he will learn from the playoffs.
"Everything isn’t going to be perfect but I’m man enough to acknowledge my flaws ..." he said, "and I'm also man enough to get my [expletive] in the gym and work on those things and get better."
In a couple weeks, we'll get to see what this summer has done for him, and for the Pistons, and if he builds on his improvement from a year ago pre-postseason, the noise will quiet through the winter. Based on what he's done so far, and how he showed up Sunday, it'll be surprising if he doesn't, at least in the regular season.
But then this young team is past judging their season by what happens from October to April. So are its fans.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jalen Duren learned toughest lesson of all during summer of discontent
