Jalen Duren's hamstring strain asks a Pistons center committee to cover what his $6.5M salary bought last season
The Detroit Pistons announced Sunday that center Jalen Duren has a right hamstring strain and will be sidelined for at least two weeks, when the team's medical staff will re-evaluate him. He was hurt in the second quarter of Friday's win over the Miami Heat after 10 minutes on the floor, and he had already been ruled out of Sunday's game before the diagnosis came.
The team's two weeks is a minimum, not an estimate. Yahoo counted six missed games if he is cleared right at that mark (the 76ers twice, the Knicks, the Hornets twice and the Nets), which would allow a return on Nov. 8 at home against the Lakers. The Sporting News wrote that he will likely be out longer, citing past NBA data from Brian Sutterer MD that puts this injury at two to three weeks, or around eight regular-season games.
No grade for the strain and no longer-term prognosis have been reported, so the honest range stays open until that re-evaluation.
The timing is awkward on two fronts. Detroit is 2-0, and Duren had 22 points and 9 rebounds in the opener against Boston, according to Yahoo, which listed his early averages at 13 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2 assists. He is also only weeks removed from an offseason standoff that, per ESPN and Yahoo, kept him out of media day and the first few practices of camp before he signed a five-year, $200 million extension that Yahoo reports runs through the 2030-31 season.
What the reporting has not given is the money inside that deal: the guaranteed amount, the year-by-year salaries and the season the new figures begin. That leaves last season as the only season the payroll sheet can actually read, and it reads as a role carried at a low price.
In 2025-26, Duren's $6.5M salary sat 215th of the 435 rated players, while his production ranked 3rd, per WAGE. Part of what built that season total is plain availability and role: The Sporting News notes he played a career-best 70 of Detroit's 82 games and finished as the team's leading rebounder and second-leading scorer, a complement next to Cade Cunningham.
That return earned him a WAGE Score of 97 last season, second of the 435 rated players and squarely in the Steal! tier. It was a reading of that salary, though, and it says nothing about what the extension will buy or about his hamstring now.
The more useful figure for the weeks ahead is where the output sat on the roster. Last season Duren took 3% of Detroit's payroll and supplied 18% of its production, so the player now sidelined was carrying a large slice of what the rotation produced on a small contract.
The plan to cover it is a committee. Paul Reed is expected to start at center, with Tolu Smith getting minutes and John Collins possibly sliding to the five in smaller lineups, according to Yahoo and RealGM; Yahoo also raised Ronald Holland II as a possible starter if Collins moves inside.
There is an encouraging data point. Reed came off the bench Friday and finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds, per Yahoo, and Holland added eight points, five rebounds and four assists in 22 minutes.
I'd argue the exposure here is structural rather than a matter of six or eight games: a season ago Detroit drew a large share of its production from one inexpensive center who was on the floor most nights, and the depth behind him is three players splitting the job. The concession is real, because a single game from Reed and a two-game start are far too little to say how that split will hold up, in either direction.