PREVIEW: A Top 10 Center Season is Incoming For Jalen Duren! | Will Duren SILENCE His Critics?

PREVIEW: A Top 10 Center Season is Incoming For Jalen Duren! | Will Duren SILENCE His Critics?

Jaylen Durren has a pathway this year to become a top 10 center in the NBA. And I’ll lay out how that can happen in today’s episode, Locked on Pistons podcast. Let’s go. You are Locked on Pistons, your daily Detroit Pistons podcast, part of the Locked Onet. Your team every day. What’s the deal? Welcome back to another episode of the Locked On Pistons podcast. Per usual, I am your host, Cahill. I’ve been covering the Detroit Pistons over the last three years or four years actually for the Lockdown Network band credential media member for the last three years. I appreciate all of you guys who make Lockdown Pistons your first listen every single day. We are free and available on all your podcast platforms. If you haven’t already, head to the YouTube channel at Lockdown Pistons. Hit that subscribe button or leave us a fivestar review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to this on. That’s another great way to support the podcast. And today’s episode, we will be doing the season preview for Jaylen Dur. I want to talk about how he can become a top 10 center in the NBA this upcoming season. And so we’re going to start off by talking about kind of reviewing a little bit of his last season, talking about where he stands right now, and then we’ll move into how he can become a top 10 center both on the offensive end of the floor and on the defensive end of the floor. But like I said, we need to start with kind of going back to last year, get an idea of where he was this past year and what he has to improve on. Then we’ll move into how he can get there. Um, so first obviously, like I said, let’s start off with last year. Last year be over the entirety of the season, excuse me, he averaged 11.8 points a game, 10.3 rebounds a game, 2.7 assists to 1.9 turnovers with a 70 true shooting percentage. Very efficient player, finishes almost everything inside of the paint, dunks almost everything. That’s great. Obviously, everyone knows though that after January is when he took this big jump. After January 4th, which is when Assar Thompson was insert inserted into the starting lineup, he averaged 13.2 2 points which was up 1.4 points. He averaged 11 rebounds as that was up.7 rebounds a game. He averaged three assists which was up.3 assist and then 1.6 turnovers which was down.3 from his overall year statistics. Now the question I want to answer today is can Jaylen Durn become a top 10 center in the NBA this upcoming season? I think that should be his goal coming into this year. His goal should be, I want to be known as a top 10 center in the NBA. In order to answer that question of just how far he is, we have to go through and I made a list of all the centers I believe that most people would say that is are better than him right now. Now, I have a list of players that I would say yes to and then there’s other players that you would he was in the conversation with. So, let’s start with this. Here we go. And I’m going to number them as we go. One I and this isn’t in order. This is just I went through NBA team, so it’s not in order of who’s the best because you’re going to hear all kinds of names all over the place. All right, so one, Chris Stops. Two, Cat. Three, Joel. Four, Jakob. Five, I got Allen/Mobly. Whichever one you guys want to consider the center on that team. There you go. That’s five. Six, Miles. Seven, Bamabio. Miles Turner. That was um eight, Nicole Jokic. Nine, Rudy Gobear. 10, you got Chad or Isaiah Hardenstein, whichever one. Pick your pick your poison. Whichever one you want to pick, both of them I would say are better than Duran at this point. That’s 10. Now we’re at 11. Zubach, we got 12 Sabonis. 13 Daniel Gaffford, 14 Sang Goon, 15 JJ, and 16 we got Victor Wimyama. Those are 16 players at the center position that I would say are better than Jaylen Duran at this point. Now, a few of those you may argue are power for maybe Chris Stops you may argue as a power forward. He’s doesn’t play power forward much anymore at this point of his career. He’s a five. So, I would disagree with that. Another play you may argue is a four instead of a five. It’s a bonus. I would disagree with that. I think he’s a five at this point in his career. Um, and then you may have arguments against like Joel or Chris Stops because they’re always injuryprone, but I think everyone would universally agree, at least you should, that when they’re healthy and on the floor, they are better though. So, that’s what I was going off of. So, that was 16 names I named. Then there’s two extra names that I talked with some people around the Lockdown Network and just asked their opinions and stuff, see, you know, where they stood. And these were people that they had mixed opinions on. This was Donovan Clinging and Nicholas Claxton that they were like some people had Dur, some people had Dumb. So those I say that he’s in the conversation with. So he’s somewhere between like the 17th I would say the 17th and the 20th best center in the NBA as of right now. How can he get to that next step? We’ll dive even further into that later on, specifically offensively and defensively. But the very quick answer to that is he has to play much more like he did after January last year more than he did more than he looked like before January. He has to answer that question. If he can look like the player he was after January once the Sar Thompson came back and they started playing much better defensively then I think he works his way into this top 10 conversation. And you see amongst all these guys that I just named almost every single one of them and I think people have to understand I think most people do but people have to understand that as a five especially in the modern NBA as a fiveman you have to be able to if you are if you are going to be a starting caliber five on a contending basketball team on a contending team in whatever conference you have to be somewhat of a defensive anchor. You have the main role of your the the main role of most fives outside of the names that who who did I mention that there was like maybe two or three guys you would not say this for like Sangon even though he got much better defensively this past year got much better and a lot of that is due to the the surrounding pieces. I get that, but he got better individually. But Sangon, a Sabonis, that definitely would kick in uh there. Jokic, but Joic is literally one of the maybe the greatest offensive player we’ve ever seen. Like that kind of thing. So obviously that doesn’t matter with him, but literally every other and Cat Cat’s the other one. Every other player, that’s three guys I named. One of them’s one of the greatest players we have ever seen in our lives. Um every other player here is an anchor defensively. They they they anchor their team’s defense to where they they are not going to be just awful when they’re on the floor. They are not individually going to be just bad defensively. And we will talk about, like I said, we will talk about things he can improve offensively because I do think there’s things he can do offensively to separate himself from some of these guys on this list. But at the end of the day, he can improve in some of these things we’re going to talk about offensively coming up. But if he doesn’t take this jump defensively, he is always going to be capped. He will always have a a ceiling to as to to how high he can go and how impactful he can be. I mean, in the playoffs, I’ll just bring this up. In the playoffs, I went through and we’ve talked about this a lot. I went through and looked at every single cat made three, and that was a struggle for him guarding stretch bigs. However, he did have 10 block shots in the playoffs and the Pistons played well defensively in the playoffs. Now, we’ll discuss it and get into it even further later on, but the point in which I’m bringing that up is you saw what he struggles at, how he can be taken advantage of, but in the playoffs, you saw him commit more than he ever has to trying to be that anchor at least around the rim, be that rim protector. And no one is asking, no one is expecting, at least I’m not, for Jaylen Duran to become this all cal all defensive team caliber player, but if he can, and all of these players have weaknesses, but if he can improve in one of the areas, and maybe he’s not, he won’t take a jump everywhere, but if he can become a a better rim protector and maybe he’s just lagging behind as a as a guy on the perimeter, you can kind of build forward with that. you can you can start to you know see change and start to feel confident about that moving forward. So the main takeaway I would have from this list cuz guys I know that so like for example I know some people who are listening to this some of these names I mentioned they’re going to be mad about for example but I feel very confident in this and I mo according to a lot of lists I’ve seen agree with me. The names I would say most fans would probably push back against is like a Daniel Gaffford or a um I I just lost his name, Daniel Gaffford and Yakapal. But those guys are good defensively. Those guys play well defensively. They are able to Daniel Gaffford was carrying or not I I don’t want to say carry, but he was one of the key pieces to a defense that had Kyrie and Luca Donuch in front of him. But it was so good because he was able to help defensively and anchor that defense. Same thing with Jakapoto. He is really good defensively. Now, he is falling off a little bit as the years go on, but I still think he’s really good and he’s a really good rim protector. He’s able to help a team defensively. That’s the difference. Can Can Duran do more with the ball in his hands? For sure. Is he more talented? I absolutely think so. I I am very high on the talent and the skill level of Jaylen Duran. Can he do Can he drive to the basket better than a Gaffford or a Portal can? Yes. Is he maybe just as Is he a better passer or at least just as good of a passer as PL, but a better passer than Gaffford? Yes, I I think so. Is he better at DHO’s and driving off of that? Yes. Is he a better lob threat than Yak Pal? Yeah, I would say so. Probably. I think him and Gaffford are both equally as good. But my overall point is that does Dur have some advantages offensively over those guys? Yes. But as a fiveman in 2025, your impact is more so felt unless you are, and I just read an article about this. They did a great breakdown in this about talking about different type of archetypes in 2025 in the modern NBA. You can have more talent offensively, but with how teams play now and the way you have to build your team to contend, you need your fiveman unless you are a top tier offensive out of this world guy like Jokic. Your fiveman needs to be able to help you can have a good defense. So that’s the difference between Duran and these guys on this list and why despite the fact that he is such a good lap thrower and despite the fact he does have such these these these passing chops and the fact that he does have this on ball skill set that maybe some of these guys don’t have the reason why he falls behind them is because they all are able to do things that that impact the game much more in the year of 2025. Now, like I said, that doesn’t mean that there is not a pathway to Jaylen Dur becoming a top 10 center in the NBA. There absolutely is a pathway. And if he can become a top 10 center in the NBA this upcoming season, that would do wonders for the Detroit Pistons and helping them take this next step. And coming up, we will discuss what it is offensively that he can improve on to take this next step and become a top 10 center in the NBA. We’ll talk about it coming up. 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That’s 50% off your first year at monarchmoney.com with code lenba. that’s locked on NBAmoney.com for 50% off your first year with Monarch Money. So, I want to thank you guys again making Lockdown Pistons your first listen of every single day. We are free to develop on all your podcast platforms. If you haven’t already, head to the YouTube channel at Locked OnPistons, hit that subscribe button or leave us a fivestar review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to us on. That’s another great way to support the podcast. If you guys are subscribers over at the Substack or if you’re not already a subscriber over at the Substack, I had a a breakdown for J and Ivy come out, I believe four or five days ago, go check it out. I think it was really good. A lot of people seem to have liked it. If you haven’t checked it out already, I’ll link the Substack down below. You can subscribe. You get a free one use to it. There’s a u I think it’s a 12minute video. The first six minutes for free subscribers, you can upgrade to a paid subscription. I believe it’s three $3 a month for uh if you use my promo code, which is also over on the Substack. Also, uh you can buy yearly, whatever, all that stuff. Uh go check it out the substack. I appreciate all the support from you guys. Um but now let’s start with offensively later on. We will get into defense, but let’s start off with offense. For me personally, what I want to see from Jaylen Durren that that I think he has to be able to he has to be able to do in order for him to reach his actualized potential that I see for him. For those of you guys who’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you guys know that I’ve been very critical of Jaylen Dur’s defense. Um, I think that’s fair. Um, but I think most people who’ve listened to the podcast for a while know that I’m also very high on Jaylen Durren’s skill set and I think he’s a very, very talented guy. The problem is is that this past year you got inconsistencies with his you got inconsistencies with his ability to utilize that ultra talent he has offensively. This is why I want to go with this. After January, he averaged three assists a game to 1.6 turnovers a game, right? He was much better. You would even like the turnovers to come down a little bit more, but he was much better before. Then we’re looking at close to two turnovers a game. We’re looking at 2.6 assists a game. And it’s not a large difference in like it’s 0.5 difference.3 difference but when you were watching the games and we talked about this throughout the year. It was something we followed throughout the season is that for the first I’d say like month and a half of the season JB bigger staff tried putting the ball in Jaylen Duran’s hands and something he talked about immediate day something he talked about throughout the offseason that he wanted to do. He wanted to bring and utilize that playmaking that Duran has and that is one of the things that makes him very talented. But to start the year, he was turning the ball over and making uncharacteristic decisions with the ball in his hands offensively to the point where JB kind of just took the ball out of his hands completely in the month of December. Kind of just went away from him. It was like we can’t like you’re turning the ball over too much. We want to trust you, but you’re just you’re you’re you’re a turnover too much. We can’t trust it. So, we kind of took the ball away from Duran again, and that limited what he was able to do offensively along with like some of his struggles defensively. And that’s when it started to get really worrisome for him during the season. But then obviously Assar Thompson comes back. They start playing better defensively. He starts to play better. He calls himself out. He starts to play better. And then they start giving him the ball again. And now the turnovers go down. The assist numbers go up. Not only do the turnovers go down, the assists go up. So, I think the one of the main things I need to see from Durn or I want to see from him that I know he can do is be a trusted facilitator, be a trusted hub within the offense to where it’s not rocky throughout the year where it’s like, “Okay, we’re giving it to you now. Okay, nope. We got to take it away. Okay, now we’re giving it back to you again. Okay, now we’re taking away. Okay, now you’re playing better. We like that needs to be something he’s consistently able to do for the team. He has to be steady in that because that is one of the things of the names that I mentioned on this list. That is one of the things that separates him from some of these guys. That is his special talent. His ability to run DHL’s. His ability to throw back door passes. His ability to be a really good playmaker off the dribble to be a passer at that size. He has to be able to do that. And he has to be able to do it consistently. Not at parts of the season, consistently. And if he’s able to play like that throughout the whole year, I think that would be huge. and that would be a big improvement not just for him but for the team’s offense in general. That’s number one. Number two, this is what this kind of branches off of that. It’s the same it’s it’s from the same era, but it kind of branches off of it. In the playoffs, I talked about one of the most disappointing things I had uh come away with for Duran was that going into the series, I thought the one area that the Pistons could try to, you know, take advantage of this this pressure point that they could push against the Knicks was the fact that Cat fouled so much in the playoffs, he’s a foul-prone player. And Duran, as the season went on, especially the last month and a half of the season, was dribbling full court and driving to the basket, was driving from the top of the key to the basket, was driving off of fake DHS going to the basket. They were running inverted pick and rolls for him. When guys would top block on on shooters coming around for a DHO, they would just have the shooter run into Jaylen Dur’s defender, then they would run an inverted pick and roll and get Durn flowing to the basket off the dribble. And that is something he has improved on immensely. His footwork has improved immensely on that. He’s become a much better finisher off the dribble. It was something that I was loving. I I it was truly like the next step of his development with the ball in his hands that one of the reasons why I’m so high on him as an offensive player and of the talent. But in the playoffs, he just didn’t do it at all. Like it was not something at all that they went to. It wasn’t something he was really doing at all. And it’s his first playoff run. So maybe that had something to do with it. Like first playoffs, maybe he was nervous. He didn’t want to mess up. He just wanted to, you know, stay within, you know, the lines and just do everything I can, you know, uh, play as hard as possible. Don’t do anything extra. I just don’t want to make any mistakes. And I understand that for sure. I I I’d get that. It’s his first playoff playoff run. But next season, I think the Pistons offense desperately needs that from him for the entire season. Their half court offense is something I’ve written about in the Substack non-stop. We’ve done film breakdowns for it over in the Substack non-stop. We’ve talked about in the podcast a lot. their half court offense was the worst of any team that played more than four games in the playoffs this past year uh in the playoffs. Now, the only other team was Memphis, but you know, Memphis is, you know, whatever. The Pistons had the worst half court offense, and their half court offense during the season was not very good. It was a bottom 10, 11 offense in the half court when you disclude uh putbacks. The Pistons have to improve in that some way. And one of the ways they can do that is having multiple ball handlers on the floor. It’s something that OKC done. It’s something that uh Indiana has done. It’s something that a lot of these teams are doing. And and I hate to shout this guy out, but he is right in this. Weaver talked about this when he was with the Pistons. Even Traan has talked about it. It was one of the main goals of Weaver and I understood the vision. He just didn’t do a good job of capitalizing on it. But Traian’s talked about it as well is that the league is heading into a way into a place where you need every guy basically on the floor to be able to attack a close out, attack uh the rim and be able to kick out, make a read. Like that’s what you need. And Duran is one of these centers. Not all the centers I named earlier can do that. Not very many at all can do that, but Duran can. Not only can he make the make a play at the rim, dunk on somebody, draw a foul, finish at the rim with his footwork. Not only can he do that, he is a tremendous passer. He’s able to do that. Now, if he’s able to do that through the entire season where the team is trusting him to do it, that would be huge. And I think that would be that’s one of the areas that the Pistons can hit on in the half court offense to improve it. Is is telling Duran, “Improve your three-point shot.” Something they can actually expect to improve their half court offense. I’m sorry. No, it’s not going to be telling us be a 40% three-point shooter to in to improve the half court offense. Is that something that’s going to happen? No, it’s it’s just not going to happen, guys. It’s not. Let’s be realistic. So, operating within realistic visions. You know what the team build is. You know, it’s going to be Kade, Ivy, Tobias, Assar, Dur. You know what that that’s the that that’s what it’s going to be. With that said, how can you then improve the offense off of that? And I think Duran is a key part of that. He has to be consistent as someone with the confidence and the decision- making as a driver with the basketball and I think that’s something he absolutely can do. It’s one of the things that makes him special and I think they need him to do it. So, I’m hoping we see it for the full season this year. I think that would be great for him. Um, the other thing, last thing I would say offensively for him is people are talking about a jump shot. Again, I don’t think a jump shot is needed from him. What I do think is needed from him is a floater. if teams are running drop coverage and you know he gets the ball. It’s one of those I kind of call back to I did a full break. I think it was like actually I think it was the year before I became the host of locked on Pistons. But anyways, um the best example I always do with this is I go all the way back to the the Bucks playoff series in 2019 and Andre Drummond was very much struggling against the Bucks. And one of the main reasons this was was the Bucks were in drop coverage. He’d get the bounce pass from Ready Jackson and he’s just driving like he doesn’t have a floater. He doesn’t have a jump shot. Doesn’t have a pull-up or anything. So, he’s just driving into a 7 foot one guy that has his hands up waiting for him at the rim. That’s just not a high percentage shot. And that’s something that Duran runs into at times when the lob isn’t there or he doesn’t have an advantage off the bounce pass. I don’t think the jumper is what he needs. I think he needs to add the floater from that 8 foot range that if teams are going to back off and K gives them that bounce pass and they’re playing in drop coverage and he doesn’t have a clear dunk or a clear drive to get to the paint. Be able to just stop, catch the ball, stop at the eight foot range and just float a shot up. It will get them out of that. Be able to pay make them pay for that. I think that’s another thing that can improve the half court offense. Again, I don’t think a jump shot is ever needed for Duran. I don’t I don’t think he’s ever going to need one, but I don’t know. It’s the same thing we talked about with Assara. Like how good does a Saran have to be as a corner three-point shooter when you’d rather him spy up at the corner rather than do everything else he’s good at? Like and what how good would Jaylen Duran have to become as a three-point shooter where you want him popping instead of rolling off screens? Like I just don’t see that ever being something you should do. I just don’t see it. But what he can do off the role is have have tools and things he can branch off the roll. Whether it’s a drive off the catch, whether it’s drive into a post up and and use your footwork to try to create a shot, whether it’s a kick out off the short roll, whether it’s again this floater, having having things that you can counter off of your m your best stuff is most important. Stick with your best stuff, but then have counters off of it that can branch off of that. That’s what he needs. So, that’s why I think the floater is the next most important thing that he should have to add to his game offensively, which I think would be really important for him. So, let me know comment section down below or over on Twitter, Cookahill, how you guys feel about what I’ve said about his offense. Is there some things that I didn’t mention that you guys think he should improve on? Do you guys agree, disagree? Let me know all that comment section down below or over on Twitter, Cookah Hill. Coming up, this is the most important part right here to wrap up the podcast. Save the best for last. If Duran wants to be a top 10 center this year, which he can be, he could do it. The defensive area of the floor, he has to make a jump. How can he do it? We’ll break it down coming up. If you’re running a business, you know that every mis call is money left on the table. Think about the last time you had an urgent need, maybe for a plumber or a service provider. If the first person didn’t answer, did you wait? Probably not. You moved on. That’s why you need Open Phone. Open Phone’s the number one business phone system built to streamline and scale your customer communications all from an app on your phone or computer. Open Phone lets me manage business calls and texts from a single app. The shared inbox feature is a game changer. Your team can jump into any conversation instantly without missing a beat. 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This is the biggest biggest area of improvement for Jaylen Duran. Only way the only way Duran can become a top 10 center in the NBA is by improving on the defensive end of the floor. He has to become a better defender because it is not an if. It is not a maybe. It is a must. He has to do it. Should you expect Duran to be able to switch out on the perimeter and guard on the perimeter? No. that’s not in where he has to improve on. There’s other areas that for a guy that is not the quickest laterally, so he can’t switch on the perimeter. There are other things that those type of bigs can do to be really impactful defensively. We see it all the time with a guy like Brook Lopez, Rudy Gobear. You don’t have to be a switching guy to be an impactful defender like Joel Lambi, Christophorzingis, you know, the Daniel Gaffford, these guys. I I I think Wimby is pretty okay, but Wimby also, you know, you he’s just, you know, we won’t use Wim as the example because he’s just a freak. Um, my point is is that it looks different ways for different type of centers. And the way it’s going to look for Duran is not from the guy switching out. It’s going to be about excelling in protecting the rim. One, and two, being locked in on your matchup. I want to say these numbers first. We’ve heard these numbers. All of you guys who listen to the podcast have heard these numbers before, but I’m going to say them again. When Jaylen Duran and Assar Thompson were on the floor together, they had a 113.7 defensive rating. It’s a very good defensive rating. It’s you can take that. You will accept that. When Assar was on the floor without Duran, it was a 108 defensive rating. That’s best in the NBA. That would be like the best in the NBA. However, when Duran was on the floor without Assar, which was 1,090 minutes for this past year. It’s a large sample size. During without Assar, it jumps all the way to 119.4. That’s not good at all. It’s not good. It’s that’s six point worse with him and Assar on the floor and it’s over 10 points worse when Assar is on the floor without him. That transcended into the playoffs as well. Same kind of you see the same kind of correlation. How can Duran change that? Like I said, one, he has to be a consistent rim protector. And I think that’s one of the reasons why the defense with Assar and Duran were so good after the after Assar was put into the starting lineup was and we broke this down into subse with multiple film breakdowns is that when Assar is on the floor, Duran trusts that he can rotate and go after shots at the rim and know he has someone behind him helping him out. This is something that Stan Van Gundy talked about all the time when he was the coach of the Detroit Pistons in regards to Andre Drummond. used to talk about it non-stop is that some of the concern for Drummond when he was talked with them and he’s tried to make him improve as the rim protector etc etc was is that you have to trust that someone behind you is going to have you have to trust the rotation and when you don’t trust that rotation you don’t want to go out chase after a shot because if you chase after the shot and there is no rotation you’re giving up an easy putback you’re giving up an easy dunk you’re giving up an easy offensive rebound you that’s what you’re giving up and do you want to give that up that’s one of the big things that bigs go through and I think the film plays it out, the numbers back it up that when Assar was on the floor with Duran, Duran just trusted that, hey, I’m going to go after every shot possible because I know Assar, who’s a great rebound, crazy athletic, crazy energy, great defender himself. I know if I chase after this, Assar is going to rotate down. He’s going to have my back and he’ll either one, he’s going to get this defensive rebound, or two, he will be in a position where it’s going to be tough for this person to get the rebound and then go back up with it before I can then react again. We saw this a lot in the Cleveland Cavaliers game at the end of the season without K Cunningham. That’s one of the reasons why they won that game because Assar and Durham were just playing so well off each other individually or in the paint I should say against Moy and Allen. They won that matchup. So, I think honestly that’s an area we probably will see in natural improvement from Duran simply because he’ll be playing with Assar more and that trust when you have that trust in your defense when you have that trust with your partner I think that’s when you’ll start to see Duran chase after shots even more again he had 10 blocks multiple three block games in the playoffs he was chasing every shot at the rim and again it’s because he trusts that he has the rotation behind him so I think that’s somewhere he has to improve but I think honestly You guys can expect to see that. I think you guys can expect to see that just because he’ll play all season now with Assar now. So, I think he’ll be better with that this season. However, okay, now we move into the area that will hold him back. This will hold him back if he doesn’t improve this. Now, I I mean, I could really get into the nitty-gritty and start talking about how he needs to improve his drop coverage angles. He doesn’t really understand at times the angle in which he needs to be at um when defending the ball handler. And also like when he’s in the two-on-one situation and drop coverage, the ball hander chasing or attacking him downhill and he also has his big rolling down angle to be at to take away the drive and also take away the lob. I could get into the nitty-gritty with that. I wish I could use film in the podcast because I would, but that is something that he has to improve on, but I I don’t think a lot of you guys are going to like hearing me get into the nerdy stuff of that kind of thing. That actually is something that JB brought up after one of the games this past year. Um, one of the games I was at, he hit on it a little bit, but like I said, I don’t think people really want to hear that nerdy stuff. If you guys do though, let me know. I’ll start going into it even more. I saved most of that kind of stuff for the Phil breakdown to the substack. But the area that he that has to improve is his focus, his focus, his awareness, his processing speed on defense, and just his attention to detail. Now the attention to detail falls into what I was just talking about like with the angles and you know all that stuff. But it also falls into knowing who you are playing against and having consistent effort effort and IQ in processing at all points of the game. One of the main reasons why during struggles against anyone that has any fiveman that has ball skills or any fiveman that has shooting ability, he’s not laterally that quick for someone who is athletic, but he’s not laterally that quick. But that’s not the biggest reason. The biggest reason is he’s constantly I, and I mean constantly in bad positioning and not where he’s supposed to be, which starts him from behind and trying to defend them. And then when you go against someone who has ball skills as fiveman, if you’re starting at a at a at a bad position, you’ve already lost. They’ll just take advantage of it. These other guys that don’t really have ball skills, you can be in bad position, kind of recover, and they won’t make you pay for it. But when you are when you are running back in transition defense and you have a trailing big like a Christophs, like a Carne Towns, like a Nicole Buchvich who lit the Pistons up earlier in the year. When you’re going against those guys, you cannot be just running back on defense and be caught underneath the free throw line because by the time they catch the ball at the top of the key, there is no, oh, okay, I’ll just catch up and they hold the ball for a second. No, they’re letting it fly and now you’ve just given up three points. Then you give up another three. Now you’re giving Now it’s nine-point game after one minute of three offensive possessions because you haven’t closed out or you haven’t been there on the catch. Again, another thing JB Big talked about a ton when he put Tobias on Cat in the playoffs said that Tobias was doing a great job of just being there already on catch against Cat. And that’s why when Tobias was on the floor, Cat only got up, I believe, like three or four threes throughout the series and wasn’t shooting well because Tobias was taking away those catch and shoot threes. So, that’s one. He has to be in better positioning and understand who he’s playing against and he has to be in this good positioning at all times. you cannot be caught out of position. Like that’s what kills the Pistons when they go against these skill fives, these shooting fives. It’s not the fact that he can’t keep up with them speedwise. That that’s not what really kills him the most. What kills him the most is in the transition defense. What kills him the most is in pick and roll defense. The guy pops, he shows, they kick it back out to him and he’s slow to react because he’s just looking at him as like another five that won’t really actually shoot this. And if they do, they’ll take a minute. I can get a late contest and that’s good enough defense. I’ll get a late contest. No, this isn’t 2K25. Those you guys who watch, you know, play 2K. Um, a late contest does nothing against these guys. You have to be there. And I think that’s one of the main things that Duran has to improve on. This is my concern in that department is that talking with trainers and you talk to players and you listen to some players talk about this these kind of things and it’s not a universally agreed upon thing. So, we’ll see how it plays out. But a lot of people, and we’ll wrap it up with this, a lot of people believe, there are a section of people that believe that’s the kind of thing you just already have. Like processing speed, you can improve it, but most people just like you have a knack for it. You already are a good processor. It’s hard to improve as a processor. You’ve seen some guys do it like Jaylen Brown. He’s improved as a processor, as a passer, but there are a ton of guys who who are like 90% of guys that just don’t naturally have it. And it’s hard to improve on that. It’s it’s hard to get that development from a processing from an IQ st stand standpoint defensively or even offensively as like a decision maker, etc. It’s hard to improve that, which is why that’s that’s my biggest concern with him because I think this area is one of those areas that is the hardest to see development out of. Now JB is going to drill it into him. He’s one of the best coaches to try to drill this into him. So if there’s a coach that could do it, it is JB Bigger. If if there is not a team that he can do that with and and that that can believe they have the infrastructure and and the development team and the coaching that can do it, I think it’s JB and the Pistons. So we will see if they can happen. But if he does not improve in those areas, it’s really going to cap him and really put a limit on what not only one the Pistons will offer him in an extension, but also it will limit how high he gets in this league. Can he get to the top 10? If he can do this and he can improve these areas, he will be a top 10 center by the end of the year. If he doesn’t, I think we might be having a different conversation. So, that’s all I’ve got for you guys today. Let me know comment section down below or over on Twitter. How you guys feel? Do you guys agree disagree with my season preview for Jaylen Duran? Thank you guys for making Lockdown Pistons your first listen every single day. We are free and available on all your podcast platforms. That’s all I’ve got for you guys. Thank you guys. Make lockdown pistons your first listen. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Buy serve whatever podcast platform you’re listening to this on. And until next time, I’ll see you guys later. Peace out everybody.

Jalen Duren’s path to NBA stardom: Can the Detroit Pistons’ young center crack the top 10?

Host Ku Khahil breaks down Duren’s current standing among NBA centers and outlines the improvements needed for elite status. The analysis covers Duren’s offensive potential as a facilitator and scorer, highlighting his need for a reliable floater. Defensively, Khahil emphasizes the critical importance of enhanced positioning, awareness, and consistent rim protection. Key comparisons to top centers like Joel Embiid and Rudy Gobert provide context for Duren’s development.

Please tune in for an in-depth look at how Jalen Duren could reshape the Pistons’ future and his own NBA trajectory this season.

SUBSTACK: kukhahil.substack.com

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