Let’s face it – Amen and Ausar Thompson are difficult to wrap your head around. For one, they’re physically impossible to tell apart, both 6’7” with 7’0” wingspans and weighing in around 215 lbs. While the twins’ play styles certainly differ, they look absolutely identical, both gliding around the court on both ends with unmatched ease and grace. They are confusing skill-wise, capable of doing things in-game that make you stand up from your seat. However, each possess massive warts in some of the most fundamental areas of the sport. And then there’s of course the confusing context. The Thompsons will be the first prospects from the Overtime Elite (OTE) program in which organizations will invest serious draft capital.
The OTE league has six teams made up of primarily high school-aged prospects. The organization has plenty of talent, but the best players that Amen and Ausar (who turned 20 in January) faced up against this season were 18 and 19 years old. This muddies the waters with how valuable their counting stats and film are from this season. I won’t sit here and act like OTE was the highest-quality hoop that I’ve watched. But the good in all this? Amen and Ausar did what they had to do on the court. Their team, the City Reapers, went 14-1 en route to an OTE Championship. Ausar led the league in +/- at +297, and Amen finished second at +285. Somoto Cyril finished third at a distant +172.
During the pre-season, the twins traveled to Europe for a few exhibition games. They also faced a tough Omaha Blue Crew team in The Basketball Tournament in July 2022, suiting up against some former High Major stars in Marcus Foster and Admon Gilder. The dominance wasn’t quite as sheer (each mustered up just 9 points versus the Blue Crew), but the twins were the two best athletes on the floor during every pre-season game in which they appeared. Amen, in particular, was all over the place defensively, recording 5 steals and 4 blocks versus Mega Bemax and 3 steals and 2 blocks during The Basketball Tournament. There were flashes of brilliance from both. There were also some poor shooting games.
Aspiring prospects have been making the jump from the NCAA to the pros for decades. The same can’t be said for OTE’s players. There is no frame of comparison that we can look to when projecting these two bright stars to the next level. That has to be scary as hell for NBA front offices. Brandon Miller recording an 11.0 BPM, Jarace Walker having an 8.4% stock rate, and Grady Dick shooting 40.3% from three on 10 attempts/100 as freshmen all give teams comfort. So what do we do with the Thompsons?
I want to focus on what Amen and Ausar bring to the table. What have they put on tape? It’s easy to flip discussions surrounding their prospect-hood into the “they didn’t play any real competition!” thing. But reducing the conversation to this diminishes the incredible feats that each twin is capable of executing on the basketball court.
Amen
This play encapsulates how special of an athlete Amen Thompson is. The first step out of the initial spin move is explosive. He goes from having his man up in his grill to holding about 6 feet of separation in the blink of an eye. After snaking the screen, he starts his second spin move, covering a lot of ground with his strides and landing outside the restricted area. And somehow, after finishing his spin, Amen loads up and elevates for a dunk? Where his head is nearly at the rim? Jumping off of two feet in a tight area?
The craziest aspect of this play is how effortless he makes it look. There are very, very few humans on planet Earth athletic enough to pull a maneuver like this off, and Amen does it without sweating.
With his acceleration, Amen is a threat to get both feet in the paint whenever he has the ball in his hands. Most importantly, he’s capable of winning with simplicity. He doesn’t have to string together a bunch of moves to generate a quality advantage, which is the way it should be against pre-professional competition. He doesn’t lack a deceptive handle – he just isn’t overly reliant upon it. Here he gets a switch, and all it takes is a simple right-left cross to get his man stumbling into next week. He finishes with an uncontested dunk hopping off his right rather than both feet this time around.
Amen’s handle isn’t the tightest, sometimes losing control of the ball or getting stripped on digs. It’s something that will need to improve at the next level, but he has a little bit of a longer leash since the burst is so damn special. It’s rare to find players that can change direction at full speeds while getting to the rim. Stuff like the clip below is reserved for the Jaden Iveys and Ja Morants of the world, guards who Amen has 3-4 inches on.
Once Amen gets downhill, he has a nice bag of scoring tricks. His hang-time is absurd, capable of floating in the air for what feels like an eternity and contorting his body to finish at difficult angles. He uses both hands, often going to a lefty reverse when driving to his right. He isn’t perfect. Occasionally he’ll drive into a crowded paint and force up a difficult look or leave his feet too far away from the cup and try to out-muscle rim protectors. But still, his size, body control, and athleticism give him access to finishing windows that are unavailable to others. He’s also developed into a foul magnet, an encouraging improvement from last season. In 2021-22, his free throw rate across all competitions was .296. This past year, he improved to a whopping .438.
Part of what makes Amen so appealing as a slasher is that he doesn’t merely drive to score. He constantly looks to get his teammates involved. A lot of the reads he makes seem pretty simple. 1) Blow by man. 2) Draw help at the rim. 3) Kick to the corner or dump off to the dunker spot. 1) Gets a step on his opponent. 2) Draws help in the gap. 3) Finds a teammate one pass away. He’s a 6’7” walking paint touch – many of these windows are going to be big and seemingly obvious, but Amen being able to capitalize on them is super encouraging.
In his 20 OTE games, he averaged 6.8 assists per game. I don’t think it’s crazy to dub him the best passer in this class, and he balances his scoring and playmaking well. The vision is there, picking out cutters and hitting them off a live dribble. He’s excellent at manipulating defenders with his eyes, and his deliveries are unique. Amen is a rampant jump passer, which gets him into trouble at times. But he hangs in the air for so long that he’s usually able to figure out a plan. Transition is another area where he makes his presence felt as a passer, constantly looking for hit-ahead opportunities.
Here, he gets doubled with his back to the basket and zips a cross-court skip pass to the corner. That is some mesmerizing accuracy and vision.
Let’s get to the elephant in the room: the jumper. To put it bluntly, Amen’s 3-ball does not go in often. Two seasons ago, he shot 22.0% from three and 52.6% from the foul line. Combining the OTE season stats and his pre-season games, he went 25.3% from three and 68.0% from the line, upping his volume from 2.0 to 2.9 attempts per game. Improvement! It may not seem like much, but Amen has made real strides with his jumper. It’s less of a push shot than it was a year ago, and the right leg kick/spread eagle is less pronounced on his spot-ups. Still, the ball comes out as a line drive.
Amen’s shot is far from a sure thing, and getting him to even a league-average level will take time and energy. The big question is, how much will his shooting hold him back? I don’t think the “defenses will be able to ignore him” answer is correct. Teams can go under screens against him, but Amen can use that space and accelerate into the paint. I think issues arise if he finds himself in a stagnant offense, standing around off-ball. In that situation, his presence could muck up spacing and seriously harm an offense.
The pull-up middy is perhaps a bit more attainable on his rookie contract and is a shot he’ll need to have if he is to hit a true superstar outcome. There are encouraging blips of using his change-of-pace and snaking screens to get to his spots. The strange leg kick certainly should be cleaned up.
While it isn’t a consistent shot in his bag yet, Amen still manages to find ways to win as a creator without it versus lower-level competition. Below, he decelerates to create separation. Rather than pulling up, he eats up that space and creates a laydown window.
Defense in the OTE is difficult to evaluate. Amen is aggressive in help, constantly looking for opportunities to create turnovers. There are moments where his length and speed allow him to blow up passing lanes. But this approach doesn’t always pay off. He too often finds himself out of position. He covers ground incredibly well, but sometimes the closeouts are too long. Other times he just doesn’t close out at all or completely loses track of his man.
His generational vertical athleticism translates to the defensive end of the floor, as Amen is one of the best shot-blocking wings/guards in this class. His vertical pop off of two feet is absurd and allows him to smother shots. Look at this possession from The Basketball Tournament, where he slides with his man before shooting up like a rocket ship to stuff a lay-up attempt.
And here he is defending a two-on-one in transition, somehow tracking the ball and elevating to block this shot directly after turning. There is a lot to clean up here, but if Amen can cut down on the gambling, there is a path to him being a value-adding defensive player.
Ausar
Again – the OTE is a difficult place to scout defense, but I love what I’ve seen from Ausar on that end of the floor. He has some of the best hands I’ve ever evaluated. He starts this possession with some nice sliding to force his man baseline and converts to low-man mode after the offense resets. The moment the dump-off comes, Ausar deflects the ball and forces a turnover. Honestly, this is far from a perfect defensive possession. He’s playing pretty upright and is ball-watching, but he somehow manages to locate the ball and swipe down in an instant.
There are more technically sound defensive possessions to show from Ausar. This is absolutely hounding defense, moving his feet, prying at the ball, and making life hell for the opposing ball-handler. He finishes by helping at the nail and manhandling his way into a steal.
Ausar makes his presence felt as a shot-blocker too, with the length to slide and engulf layups and the feel to rotate and protect the rim from the weak side. Watch the hands in the first clip of the compilation below, forcing a tie-up without fouling before swatting the rim attempt away. And look at him soar for that ridiculous transition block.
Jumpiness is an improvement point. Ausar can get overambitious on closeouts and jump on up-fakes.
With how unique and well-rounded of an athlete Amen is, it’s easy to forget that Ausar is a 40+ inch vertical guy in his own right. He doesn’t have the same raw first-step burst or contortion abilities of his brother, but who does? Ausar’s cutting athleticism pops off the screen. He has excellent timing, explodes into gaps well, and is a powerful two-footed leaper that can get his head to the rim without any problems. He has great anticipation on the offensive glass and pounces when his man’s head is turned in the wrong direction.
It seems that Ausar has been pitched as the “off-ball” twin. This isn’t necessarily the case, as Ausar has received plenty of creation reps with the OTE. Ausar isn’t as blessed athletically as his brother, but he is capable of getting downhill off the bounce. However, he doesn’t create advantages with as much simplicity as Amen. He can string together some nice dribble combos to get by his man, but he loses control of the ball now and then, and his standstill burst is merely good rather than outstanding. Because of these factors, Ausar finds himself stuck in the in-between areas with no place to go but tough leaner-ville.
Ausar is also one of the best passers from the wing in this class. Because the advantages he creates aren’t as obvious, he doesn’t have access to every window. But he’s capable of executing simple drives and kicks and hitting the roller or popper as a ball-screen handler. His lobs to cutters and bombs in transition are notably accurate. I mean, this is about as accurately placed as a full-court as you’ll ever see.
The vision isn’t always consistent. Here, he drives baseline, jumps, and misses a wide-open teammate under the basket.
Ausar’s yearlong shooting numbers are worrisome. 28.3% on 4.4 attempts/game with a 65.3 FT% is pretty rough across all competitions, but I don’t think the shot is broken. He has some of the lower body kick-out issues of Amen, but it isn’t as pronounced. Ausar showed growth as the season progressed. In nine games from January 1st onwards, he shot 33.8% from deep and 76.1% from the foul line. The sample is small of course, but it’s encouraging that he improved over the year. In 5 OTE playoff games, Ausar shot 38.5% from three on 7.8 attempts/game. The volume bump there is the most notable for me, as he looked far more comfortable firing versus unders and shooting over contests off the catch.
Ausar has flashed some impressive shot-making off the bounce as well. His high release point allows him to shoot over contests, and he flows from dribble into shot more smoothly than you’d expect.
In Sum
Amen is one of the most fascinating creator prospects I’ve ever encountered, a rim pressure maven with size, unmatched run/jump/change-of-pace athleticism, and a preternatural feel for the game. He’s the rare lead perimeter initiator who may genuinely provide defensive value. It feels absurd for someone with strengths as strong as his to fall outside of the top 3.
Ausar has the chance to be a big-time NBA wing defender – someone who can make life difficult for the Tatums and Lukas of the world while also bringing value away from the ball. Offensively, there’s a wide range of outcomes here. Is the shooting bump real? How gravitational can the pull-up become? Ausar has the handle and passing chops to provide secondary or tertiary creation value, but where the shot lands will dictate how much value he provides in that role.
Maybe the OTE context scares you. Maybe the jumpers scare you. But man, I have a hard time viewing the twins as anything but elite NBA prospects. These are guys with the potential to be real difference-makers at the next level, players who can be core pieces on contending rosters.
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