{"id":824198,"date":"2026-08-30T16:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T16:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/824198\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T16:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T16:06:13","slug":"eastern-notes-duren-essengue-suggs-sweeney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/824198\/","title":{"rendered":"Eastern Notes: Duren, Essengue, Suggs, Sweeney"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pistons continue to show zero interest in sign-and-trade scenarios involving restricted free agent center Jalen Duren<\/a>, ESPN\u2019s Tim MacMahon said on the Hoop Collective podcast (YouTube link<\/a>). The third-team All-NBA big man is the lone RFA left on the market after the Clippers withdrew their qualifying offer to Bennedict Mathurin<\/a>, who will sign a two-year deal with New Orleans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one restricted free agency situation that remains unresolved is Jalen Duren<\/a>, who the Pistons absolutely, positively, 100 percent intend to keep, and made it clear to anybody pursuing him in sign-and-trade possibilities like, you\u2019re wasting your time,\u201d MacMahon said (hat tip to RealGM<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Duren reportedly sought out sign-and-trade possibilities when free agency began because he was unhappy with his contract offers from Detroit, meeting a couple times with the Lakers before they acquired Walker Kessler<\/a> via sign-and-trade and drawing interest from Sacramento as well. But the Pistons had no interest any sign-and-trade talks at the time and it sounds like that never changed.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from around the Eastern Conference:<\/p>\n

Noa Essengue<\/a> may need to quickly change his mindset if he wants to have a future with the Bulls, writes Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times<\/a>. As Cowley notes, Essengue was drafted 12th overall a year ago, but the team has a new front office regime and coaching staff with no ties to the French forward, who missed nearly all of his rookie season due to a shoulder injury, which required surgery. A source tells Cowley that Essengue has been \u201cspoken to about his lack of physicality and been warned about his emotions on the court.\u201d The 19-year-old was benched in the second half of his first summer league game last month by new head coach Tiago Splitter, who seemed to cast doubt that Essengue\u2019s tentativeness in Las Vegas was a result of the shoulder. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because of the injury,\u201d Splitter said. \u201cHe\u2019s got to maybe bring a little more force in everything he does. That\u2019s something we\u2019re working on.\u201d
\nEssengue appeared in four games in Las Vegas, averaging 6.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals in 18.6 minutes per game. He also committed 4.8 fouls per contest along with a shooting line of .438\/.167\/.545. Cowley suggests the 6\u20198\u2033 forward could be on the trade block at some point ahead of the February deadline if his passivity continues in training camp and during his second season.
\nIn a telephone interview with Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel<\/a>, Magic guard Jalen Suggs<\/a> talks about enjoying being a coach to top young prospects at the the Basketball Without Borders \u201cNext Up\u201d camp in Istanbul, Turkey, his work this offseason, and getting to know new head coach Sean Sweeney, a fellow Minnesota native. According to Beede, Suggs said he and Sweeney have been in communication throughout the offseason, including watching film together. \u201cHe\u2019s really shared the vision in which we want to play and the type of player he wants me to be for our team to help maximize our unit as a whole,\u201d Suggs said of Sweeney. \u201cThe fact that we get to connect here and continue to chase a common goal of making deep playoff runs and go and accomplish something that the city has never done before, it\u2019s nothing short of a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pistons continue to show zero interest in sign-and-trade scenarios involving restricted free agent center Jalen Duren, ESPN\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,912,461,2282,11784],"class_list":["post-824198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-jalen-duren","tag-jalen-suggs","tag-noa-essengue","tag-sean-sweeney"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117185320306040413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}