The Cleveland Cavaliers made a full-fledged commitment to their star shooting guard, locking in Donovan Mitchell with a massive four-year, $273 million extension.
Yet deals of this magnitude have recently become the kind that franchises look to offload. Just look at the Celtics, who moved Jaylen Brown a Finals MVP only two seasons ago for a fraction of his perceived value.
These super-max contracts, which devour 35% or more of a team’s salary cap, are becoming increasingly tough to construct a roster around a reality the Cavaliers are about to confront head-on. To keep their highest-paid players on the books, Cleveland may have to part with key depth pieces, though it’s a familiar tightrope for any team with a franchise cornerstone.
The Detroit Pistons can relate, even if they’re in a different phase. Right now, they have just one max player in Cade Cunningham, but that landscape could shift depending on how negotiations unfold with Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson.
Detroit can’t afford to stall indefinitely
On the plus side, having only one max contract gives the Pistons financial leeway that Cleveland won’t enjoy for years. But the flip side is that they may need another max-caliber talent to push into contender status—and that player might not already be in the building.
The front office must walk a fine line: finding Cunningham a co-star while bracing for the massive payday he’ll eventually command. That extension isn’t imminent, but when it arrives, it will likely surpass Mitchell’s, bringing the same roster-building headaches Detroit has watched Cleveland prepare for.
This urgency explains why teams like Oklahoma City and San Antonio are accelerating their competitive timelines around their young stars now. Waiting only complicates matters, as supporting pieces grow pricier over time.
That doesn’t mean the Pistons should make a rash, desperation trade. But they also can’t drag their feet forever patience has its limits when stars are aging and payrolls are swelling.
Detroit must stay disciplined while mining affordable talent
Trajan Langdon has shown a knack for finding value on the margins, picking up cost-effective rotational contributors like Daniss Jenkins and Javonte Green. Sustaining that pipeline of low-cost talent is critical which helps explain Detroit’s hesitance to part with multiple future picks for a non-star like Trey Murphy III.
Stockpiling cheap, draft-acquired talent is how you weather the cap crunch down the line. Just ask the Thunder, who flipped quality role players because they had younger, cheaper replacements ready to step in.
The Pistons also need to be judicious when handing out max deals. One super-max is manageable; a second essentially locks you into an all-in approach with little flexibility.
That’s why Detroit is playing tough with Duren every dollar matters under one of the more restrictive CBAs in recent memory, which introduced super-max contracts alongside punishing cap-apron penalties. It’s a questionable system, to say the least.
Eventually, every rising team confronts this dilemma. For the Pistons, the window to act is finite their youthful, budget-friendly core won’t stay that way forever.
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