With the Chicago Bulls front office rebooted, principally through Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham and new head coach Tiago Splitter, the Bulls will soon have a 2026 NBA free agency agenda to navigate.
According to John Hollinger of The Athletic (subscription required), Duren’s 2026 NBA restricted fee agency market may include “cap-room teams like Brooklyn and Chicago” who Hollinger expects “will be circling with offer sheets if the Pistons get cold feet”. Hollinger estimates a five-year $200 million contract would be sufficient to keep Duren with the Detroit Pistons.
Purely based on his talent, you could make a nominal argument that $40M per year for a 22-year-old NBA All-Star is good value. However, is Jalen Duren really the best commitment of fringe-max money for five NBA seasons? Strictly on price, there are more cost-effective front-court options the Bulls can simply select in the 2026 NBA Draft.
If the Bulls were to go center shopping during 2026 NBA free agency, a discount version of Duren’s game impact the Bulls should consider is Lakers center Deandre Ayton.
Talent, cost, roster fit, and time horizon point to Ayton
Jalen Duren is an elite pick-and-roll finisher, to the tune of being the top percentile (91.8th) pick-and-roll roll-man for the 2025-26 NBA regular season, per NBA stats. The other facets of modern basketball you would expect in a max money big simply don’t exist: doesn’t shoot threes, limited ball handling abilities, and not particularly dominant as a rim protector.
Ayton was an above-average percentile (73.8th) pick-and-roll roll-man during the 2025-26 NBA season, and he’s going into the final season of his Lakers contract on an $8.1 million player option.
Hollinger estimates Ayton’s 2026-27 player value at $19.3 million, in addition to viewing the Bulls and Brooklyn Nets as teams that would be in Ayton’s free agent market. Assuming Ayton declines his player option, the Bulls, at their current state of rebuild, would do better paying Ayton $60 million over three seasons compared to $200+ million to snatch Duren away from the Pistons.
The math between Duren and Ayton is insightful and should be instructive to the Bulls front office to punt their participation in the Jalen Duren 2026 NBA restricted free agency market. Again, Duren is a great roll-man, and in parallel, do the Chicago Bulls have a great pick-and-roll ball handler to benefit from the luxury talent and price of Jalen Duren?
For context, according to NBA stats, the Bulls' three pick-and-roll ball-handlers during the 2025-26 NBA regular season who averaged more than one possession per game of this play type were guards Josh Giddey and Tre Jones, along with wing Matas Buzelis.
Giddey and Buzelis were sub-50th percentile pick-and-roll ball-handlers during the 2025-26 NBA regular season, and Jones was an elite 81.5th percentile pick-and-roll ball-handler.
However, Tre Jones is playing on an uber team-friendly $8 million a year contract at age 28. The math and the time horizon simply don’t line up for Tre Jones to pair with a center who could earn more than five times his annual salary.
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