Jalen Duren was supposed to give the Pistons steady value in the middle this season. Instead, he gave them a leap that few around the league saw coming, turning a reliable fantasy big into one of the most surprising scorers in the game.
Duren averaged a career-best 19.5 points per game in the 2024-25 season, shot 64.9 percent from the field and 74.4 percent from the foul line, and earned his first All-Star Game appearance. He also delivered reliable top-50 fantasy value, a level of production that went beyond the expectation that he would anchor the middle for Detroit.
The size of the jump matters because it was not built from nothing. Duren already had rebounding in his profile, and the bigger shock was the scoring surge. During the 2023-24 season, both his scoring and rebounding averages were higher than they were last season, which made the 2024-25 rise even more notable. That is why his name appeared among the biggest surprises in fantasy basketball.
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What made the season stand out was the contrast between expectation and outcome. Before the breakout, Duren was viewed as a player who could provide consistent fantasy value in the middle for the Pistons. By the end of the year, he had become one of the league’s more efficient and productive frontcourt scorers, with his first All-Star selection serving as the clearest sign that the leap was real.
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NBC Sports, which published the roundup that included Duren among the biggest surprises, said of his year: “He has been unbelievable.” That assessment fits the numbers. The question now is whether the scoring growth becomes the new baseline, because if it does, the Pistons have a far different center than the one most people expected when the season began.
