The Detroit Pistons and restricted free agent center remain far apart on a new deal, and it has motivated Duren to seek out meetings with teams as free agency opens on Tuesday evening. The Sacramento Kings will be the first team to get a meeting, as we reported earlier, but now another team has entered the chat — the Los Angeles Lakers.
Sam Amick reports that there is a call between Duren and the Lakers scheduled for tomorrow. Any deal would require a sign-and-trade.
There aren’t many details beyond
that, to be honest with you. I could have updated the original story with this morsel of information. Instead, I decided to get some of that sweet, sweet Lakers-fan SEO traffic by giving this its own story.
So let’s talk Lakers.
The easiest pathway for the Lakers is to simply let LeBron James walk to Golden State, renouncing his rights along with their other free agents gives them $51 million in cap space, per Keith Smith. As a restricted free agent, the Pistons would still have the right to match any offer. I do imagine Detroit would match any offer instead of risking losing him for nothing.
On the other hand, the two teams could work out a sign-and-trade that was palatable to the Pistons.
What do they have to offer? Honestly, not much. There are two avenues the Lakers could explore, both seem unlikely to me. The first would be a deal that includes Jarred Vanderbilt, Deandre Ayton, Dalton Knecht and a couple first-round picks for Duren.
The other, hilarious, option would be to organize some sort of dual sign-and-trade featuring Austin Reaves and Duren. It was widely reported the reason the Lakers agreed to a max deal with the Lakers is because Los Angeles knew Detroit was prepared to create the space space needed to offer him a max outright. The shoe would be on the other foot.
I can’t fathom a team widely touting the return of a star player on a max deal to then trade him days later, but it feels like a weird offseason.
