I underestimated Ausar Thompson
After an impressive Summer League showing, my pre-draft stance on Ausar Thompson has started to change.
I realize that it’s still to early to come to conclusions on players, but looking back on my big board for the 2023 NBA draft class, the name that stands out is the player I ultimately had ranked tenth: Ausar Thompson.
The two-time Overtime Elite MVP, and the younger of the two Thompson twins (by a minute) was a player I differed slightly from consensus on, and that was proven when he went to the Detroit Pistons with the fifth pick on draft night, just one pick after his brother who I had ranked third.
Sometimes watching Ausar play can get a slight chuckle out of me. Following the first dead ball in their first Summer League game against the Magic, caused by a shooting foul on a drive by Jalen Duren, Ausar lazily walks up to the rim, acting as if he’s going for a putback, and with minimal load-up, Ausar springs and floats, getting his head level with the backboard.
Ausar put up great numbers for the Pistons in his four-game campaign through Summer League. In just under 30 minutes per game he averaged 13.5 points, 10.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 4.0 stocks (combined steals and blocks) coming out as one of the most productive rookies and players in Summer League.
You just have to sit back and watch him at times and realize that the things he’s doing athletically are borderline alien. It’s easy to undermine it when watching the Overtime Elite tape and seeing him alongside his twin brother, who might actually be an alien, but next to just about any other athlete, Ausar makes their gifts look like handouts.
He has prototypical wing size at six-foot-seven and 200 pounds, possessing a seven-foot wingspan, but after that, the descriptive term “prototypical” starts to lose value for him.
He uses these transcendent athletic tools as an elite defender. Ausar was an engaged team defender with Overtime Elite, while his brother took the primary on-ball assignment. However, Ausar’s fully capable of defending on the ball. He consistently matched up against four positions, sliding his feet with shifty point guards, badgering wings who like to go to work with their handles, and using his quick hands and even quicker jumping to be a pest on forwards.
Ausar could stand to add some upper body strength, but his elite lower body and core strength makes him prolific at creating turnovers and swatting shots. He’s an elite weakside rim protector relative to his size. He gets vertical better than any wing in his age range, and can take a bump in the air without fouling — another nod to his incredible core strength. He can swat shots, but he limits makes at the rim all the same regardless of if he can get a hand on the ball.
Here’s one of those non-block rim protection moments that showcases all of the traits I love about Ausar. The foot speed, contact absorption and vertical pop. He takes on Tari Eason in the back court, sliding with him all the way to the basket. With his verticality, he takes away the shot, and forces the turnover.
On the ball, he slides his feet extremely well, keeping offensive players at arms length so he has room to prepare for and absorb contact, breaking off the ball-handler’s path. Controlling an offensive player’s direction not only makes things tougher in a one-on-one sense, but can also empower help defenders by siphoning a player into them. He utilizes the baseline well in this sense as well, using it as a second defender and forcing offensive players to walk the tight rope to stay in bound, getting them under the basket with little way to go.
He defends screens well also, both on and off the ball. He’s an expert at getting tall and skinny around screens, dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging them to stay attached to his man. He truly fights to stay in a possession at all times, an admirable trait that fosters culture in a young team like Detroit.
Here, we see a perfect example of Ausar’s fight. Orlando runs a zoom action from the right corner (a pindown into a dribble hand-off), forcing Ausar to not just get through one screen, but two. He does so with ease, staying attached to his Kevon Harris’ hip the whole way through, only breaking contact when he needs to get back in front. His man reacts to this by stepping back for a jumper, and despite the space, Ausar is able to jump for a great contest.
This effort translates on all spots of the court. Ausar routinely executed a 94-foot press with Detroit in Summer League, aggressively pressuring ball-handlers. Invertedly, he also raced back in transition, beating everybody back to put extra pressure on the offense.
Here we get a taste of the value Ausar’s tools can provide as a two-way player. Off of the Ivey turnover, he comes racing down the court and eventually gets the pressure on the ball, leading to a turnover. He then comes racing back in bounds to secure the possession, bringing the ball up the court and running the pick ‘n’ roll, hanging in the air to find the cutting Jalen Duren on a jump pass, who then dumps it off for free throws.
This jump pass is something that both the Thompson twins utilize heavily in their passing arsenal. For a lot of players, it can lead to precarious situations. Being isolated in the air means that you have to get the ball out quickly, or else you’ll be called for a travel. However, the jump pass is a weapon a lot of the greatest playmakers, past and present, utilize to great effect, namely, Tyrese Haliburton and Luka Dončić.
Ausar’s hang time allows him to be a unique weapon on these types of shots, routinely hanging in the air and firing a pass like the one above where he finds a cutter, kicking it out to a shooter, or wrapping it around the help defender for a dump off.
The playmaking talent of Ausar Thompson went under the radar during his time with Overtime Elite, largely due to his brother running point guard in most lineups. Throughout Summer League, however, Ausar’s been running a lot of pick and roll for the Pistons. His athleticism can be a killer in these sets, with a first step capable of getting a drop defender off-balance, and the tight handle to probe and find the right play through pressure.
The handle was always something that stood out about Ausar on offense. In contrast with his brother who plays at unseen speeds, Ausar’s handle is tighter and more under control. He’s adept at chaining together combos in isolation, exercising beautiful footwork, as well as changing speeds and heights effortlessly. His handle is truly on a string.
The issue I had with Ausar as a creator was that it felt like he was too focused on the defender in front of him. He didn’t lose his handle, but at times you would catch him with his head down, beating the initial defender, but dribbling right into the second one and getting in a bad spot.
NBA spacing seems to have cured this from the limited film we have of Ausar in Summer League. He now has more room to operate, and with less head-down dribbling, he operates around the court like a seasoned pro, never getting too deep, but finding his lanes to attack or distribute when he can.
In the clip below, look at how he’s bouncing around defenders, changing his speed, height, direction and time between dribbles. In just five dribbles, he beats Tari Eason off the dribble, reacts to the positioning of Jay Huff, uses him almost as a screen to shed Eason, and whips it to Marcus Sasser, forcing a closeout which Sasser takes full advantage of.
This handle and ability to probe unlocks Ausar as a finisher. His first step, ball control, and improved ability to survey the court around him makes it near impossible to stop him from getting to the rim.
Once at the rim, Ausar is a spectacle to watch. In the pre-draft process, finishing was one thing I had no doubts about with Ausar, although I think I was too caught up comparing him to his brother, who is in a different world of athlete, able to pick-up at the three point line and generate a layup with perceived ease.
While Ausar lacks the ridiculous take-off points and angles of his brother, at this point in time, he’s arguably the more effective slasher, because he’s not prone to these early pickups. His handle allows him to extend attacks and get to the rim with relative ease.
Once at the rim, it’s almost ridiculous watching what he can do. He’s liable to go up and over just about anybody, but when he’s not, he’s using the same core strength he uses to contest around the rim to hang in the air and adjust for a finish with either hand.
He gets a lot of his attempts in transition as he’s still learning to navigate as a slasher in the half-court, functioning better as a playmaker who can put the ball on the floor. In transition, however, his combination of a 6’7” frame and some of the best straight-line speed in the NBA, he can attack space and run the court.
In the clip below, we can see Ausar in semi-transition, using his speed to attack a defense that’s still getting settled. All it takes is a rocker step and a cross back to the left hand to get by Dominick Barlow taking it all the way and finishing with the right.
He’s also adept at finding space off the ball. As someone who is still not a great shooter, despite flashes, the off-ball attention Ausar receives on the perimeter is lacking at times.
The best way to deal with this type of defense is cutting into that space while the defender’s back is turned, usually in response to a teammate driving, forcing help to commit. All the cutter has to do is watch for this, and find the space that best allows them to receive a pass and finish. Even if the pass doesn’t come, putting another body close to the basket gives the offensive team a chance at an offensive rebound, which Ausar grabs routinely.
Ausar has nearly mastered this, adding off-ball value as an electric athlete with jump shot struggles. This type of skill is what allows Ausar to scale within an offense, and it’s something that I overlooked when I was scouting him pre-draft.
A lot of the talk centered around his handle and the potential in his jumper, which I had aforementioned issues with, but what I think a lot of people failed to discuss is the off-ball capabilities of Ausar Thompson.
Here is one of those cuts. Ausar finds the pass early here, almost right as he takes his first step towards the basket, feeling Cam Whitmore step towards Jared Rhoden. He initially starts moving towards the corner, keeping in the line of sight of the ball handler while creating distance between him and his defender, giving him a straight line to get right to the paint and finish.
I still have some minor concerns with Ausar, especially in the half court. While he can attack space off-ball and has gravity as a slasher and pick and roll ball-handler, the shot still needs some major work. Between the twins, Ausar likely holds more potential as an outside threat, but that’s not to say that he’s by any means a threat from out there yet.
However, he leverages his offensive weaknesses with major strengths as a ball-handler, playmaker, finisher and cutter. He scales up and down, and will likely have a handful of games leading the Pistons in scoring or assists if he’s not just walking his way into 14-16 points off of cuts, transition, and the occasional pull-up or spot-up jumper.
On top of that, Ausar is an easy projection as one of the league’s better defensive wings early on in his career. His athletic tools allow him to slide with and disrupt ball handlers, play aggressive in passing lanes and contest or stuff shots at the rim.
Overall, I’m already looking at the tenth spot on my big board from this past draft cycle, where I had Ausar ranked, with a little regret. I’m not going to make a claim as to where I should have had him ranked, as it is still incredibly early, but being able to catch your mistakes early on in the post-draft evaluation process is a trait that I, and all scouts, should be attempting to learn.