Jalen Duren

About

Jalen Duren ( DURR-ən; born November 18, 2003) is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A consensus five-star recruit and one of the top players in the 2021 class, he played college basketball for the Memphis Tigers.
Duren was selected with the 13th overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets in the 2022 NBA draft. On draft day, his rights were traded to the New York Knicks and subsequently to the Detroit Pistons. He was named an NBA All-Star and made his first All-NBA Team selection in the 2025–26 NBA season.

Duren was born in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, before his family moved to New Castle, Delaware. He grew up playing football and baseball in addition to basketball, which he ended up focusing on as he grew older and improved his skills. Duren attended Gunning Bedford Middle School in New Castle, where he played on the basketball team and began attracting attention as a 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) seventh-grader in 2017. He was spotted by Rob Brown, the program director for a Philadelphia-based Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) club called Team Final, who quickly recruited him to the program. By…