Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 154: 2023 Draft Profiles - A (Newer) In-Depth Look at Ausar Thompson

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

This episode takes a deserved further look at Ausar Thompson, a player who does carry prominent concerns but whom a previous episode may arguably have treated too harshly in having been without sufficient reference to his positive qualities and potential ceiling. 

Welcome back, everybody who listened to another episode of Drive into the Baskets. And this is kind of an unexpected episode, which I just felt like I should take a little bit of time, a little bit more time to talk about a Sarah Thompson. Now, the first of the draft series was about the Thompson Twins, and it kind of skipped over a Sarah a bit in favor of talking about Amen. I think I perpetually mispronounce his name. whatever the case. I feel like, and I could end up sounding like a complete idiot and about, well, a little over 18 hours when the pistons are going to be actually on the clock and making the pick. But I feel like it's a fairly strong possibility that Asar Thompson will be the pick. And I felt like that though a couple of the, you know, really the last two episodes have gone over a Sarr a bit.

I wanted to take a bit more time to talk about him in particular. just focus on him in particular. And yeah, what I think about him in just kind of greater detail than he got in that first episode. And looking back, I really just never thought he would be a realistic possibility. Now, I've softened out him a bit. I'm not just saying all of this because I think he's possibly going, you know, very possibly going to be the pick of the Pistons remain at number five. But I've spent quite a bit of time talking about what I don't really like about a SAR.

I'd like to talk a little bit about what I do think is upside his. So Asara would not be my pick of choice. I like him better than I like Jarris Walker, but he's not the player I would really look for with this pick. And the reason I know I just said I would talk about the stuff I do like about him, this is just giving some context. I think that as a score, he's very incomplete, pretty much struggled from everywhere in an overtime elite.

His three-point shooting was, a percentage was bloated by four games at the end of the season in the playoffs in which he got super hot. sank half of his threes on the season and just that four-game span at a very high three-point percentage, much, much higher than the rest of the season. So his shot is still pretty shaky. It's nowhere near as bad as his brothers. His brother has horrible for him. Asar is better off, you know, closer. He's on, he's much closer to having a good shot, to having a functional shot, rather. So questions about that shooting. As a guy attacking the rim in a half court, like he shot in the low 40s on half-court layups, had issues.

who's finishing through contact, wasn't really getting there with a strong handle by any means. And you don't need a pull-up mid-range jumper in the NBA, but he was bad at that too. He's the kind of guy you can look at and say, okay, against the really bad competition he faced in the overtime elite and everything those two did in terms of their performance. It has to be contextualized by overtime elite. Of course, you can consider their, for the twins, you can consider their potential to be independent of the competition. That's anybody's, you know, it's up to individual determination, how you feel

that. But Asar in the half court was very bad. And he was saved from being extremely inefficient only by the fact that he got to the line a lot. That's another thing. Did he get to the line a lot? Because he was followed by defenders who just couldn't keep up with him in the OTE, bad OTE, defenders who are all much less athletic than he was. Or is that something he replicated the NBA level? But even in OTE, he was not strong at attacking the rim. And he was going to get there a lot more quickly than he will in the NBA in terms of how fast the rim protection is going to arrive. It's going to arrive a lot more quickly in the NBA and the lanes are going to be smaller and so on and so forth. It doesn't have the greatest touch at the rim. Not bad touch,

but not good touch at this point. So it was a tough time for him as a half court score, and that's concerning. And so that's why I feel like his ceiling, excuse me, his floor is potentially quite low because he's got a significant distance to go on offense. Now, the other question is, what's his ceiling? And it's tough to compute with a player like this when you look at him and you say, okay, he's got such a long way to go on offense. What can we say is his realistic ceiling? You know, you can look at many players and say if they get everything together, this can be a really good player. But that's your question about a SAR with how long, with how far he has to go on offense, you know, and especially with the struggles he had in a bad league. How likely is that he gets to

that ceiling? Okay, so that's, those are my misgivings about ASAR, whom I think has very good potential. Okay, he is a highly athletic, of course. Can't teach that. He's not the freak athlete. His brother is, but he's a very good NBA athlete. How is he the top 10 NBA athlete? No, whereas his brother certainly is, but he's a very good NBA athlete. Not the sort of nuclear athleticism. I know that was, that's really a Mike Breen term that he first used to about Russell Westbrook, who say what you will about Russell Westbrook the last few years was an amazing athlete in his prime, an incredible athlete. But yeah, so it's not like that incredibly explosive athleticism, but he can jump real high. He's real fast. He's got a pretty good first step, and so on and so

forth. And he can keep up with the guys, real good lateral mobility. He's a good weeper, you know, not quite as good off of one foot, but still pretty good and very good off of two feet. He's agile. He's got good body control. Again, not quite as good as his brother, but he's got real body control. You know, he's, he's got a very good athletic profile all around. And, you know, he's already fairly strong already. He's certainly got space in his frame to put on quite a bit more mass. He's in the mid-2-10s at this point, I believe. And yeah, so, I mean, speaking in terms of physical profile, he's gifted. You know, he's got things, of course, that you cannot teach. Athleticism is not everything in the NBA, but it's real nice to have it. It's a floor razor.

And if you've got bad athleticism at the NBA level, you'd better have. You know, you'd better have, some remarkable qualities to make up for it if you want to be a real good player. Like, for example, if you don't have the burst, that'll help you get past people. You better have an awesome handle in high basketball IQ, like Luca, for example. So having that athleticism is very nice, and he certainly has it. He's got good IQ. Seems like a guy who's going to make good decisions at the NBA level. He's a fast processor.

He's a solid passer. He has some work to do in terms of just finding himself a little bit stuck between the trees, as George Blah would put it. And, well, more accurately, kind of like in the air or in a highly compromised position where he just has to make a pass. That was a bad pass even at the OTE level. But gifted playmaker, certainly.

You know, there's no taking that away from him. Again, you can't teach that kind of processing ability. I think that he's got definite passing potential. Definitely good passing potential at the NBA level. Could be this kind of, even as a secondary guy, like maybe a five-assist guy is really a tertiary. playmaker, that's a valuable skill. A guy who's going to be able to make the right pass off the move, a guy who, if he ever finds

himself as the handler in pick and roll situations is going to be able to make probably the right pass most of the time. He's got good vision. He's a good passer. You know, this is just in terms of making the actual passes. And I don't want to be a broken record about this. Amen's better. Goodness, I always forget if I'm pronouncing that name correctly.

His brother is better than him as a passer as well. You know, it's just kind of how it is. His brother has the higher ceiling. I would say that without hesitation. I mean, Amen is an absolutely elite athlete. He's got much better touch with the rim. He is a better passer. He's just a better creator off the dribble in general,

though he's a worse shooter. But, I mean, just getting back to us. So defensive potential, I think, is very high between just his natural athletic gifts when it comes to foot speed, acceleration, lateral mobility, length. You know, he's got around to seven-foot wing span. in big hands that I, you know, is more on the, in the offensive side of things. His answer actually, as I mentioned, I think two episodes ago, a fair amount bigger than his

brothers. You know, life just isn't fair. I guess just being in absolutely elite athletes and, you know, probable top five pick in the NBA draft is just going to have to be enough for his brother. So high defensive potential. Seems like a guy who's going to stick real well to other players who's going to be able to probably, I would say, guard maybe one through four if he adds mass, seems to have good instincts. He's going to be good, I think, on the ball, and also as kind of a help side guy who's going to fly in and get his rebound, excuse me, fly in and didn't get some weak side blocks. He's an engaged defender. A lot of his defensive upside does remain upside, but it's very much there. I mean, he's he's not a fin in one of these finished products defensively or

really necessarily. Like there are guys who come into the NBA who are going to be really strong defenders off the bad, not many, but there are some. And often when you're talking about a strong defensive prospect, you're saying, okay, we think he's going to come in to be strong right away. Like, for example, I think Taylor Hendricks will be. I think Jaros Walker will be. You could argue that Assar, who's not quite as NBA ready as a defender, has higher defensive upside than the other two simply because he's just much more of that kind of defender who falls in the middle of the lineup, whereas the other two are bigs, particularly Jaris Walker is a big. Taylor Hendricks is as well. I think he's got more positional versatility, a guy who can play some three as well, both of them

can play the five. Whereas Asara is the kind of guy who's going to be able to play more of sort of primary chase a guy around defense from one to four. And certainly I don't think he'll struggle at all on guards. There's no really such a thing as lockdown defenders at the NBA level anymore. You don't get to play that kind of lockdown defense. And that is not just because of the changes to defense that have occurred over the years. It's just because it's so easy to get a defender switched onto somebody else through an offball screen, or through a standard on ball pick. So it's just so difficult to stick to guys anymore to play that sort of just lock down defense. So it's being able to, number one, be able to.

to defend the guy whom you ended up switched onto, and I think that we're not really necessarily as much talking about switch defense from the perimeter on it. I mean, Assar Thompson is not going to be attacked on switch defense. He's just not. You know, and it's rare that guys at his position, which I think is going to be primarily small forward. He'll play maybe down to some shooting guard and up to power forward in some situations. It's just, this is not the kind of player you look to attack on switches. Even, again, not really much of a thing in his position. anyway, unless you're attacking a particularly weak defender. But you also have to have the defensive IQ to make the rotations to make these

split-second decisions at the highest level and make them right. And I think he's got that. Definitely got that going for him. So, yeah, the defensive upside is definitely high. And again, I think he's, he just, he plays at a different position than the likes of Walker and Hendricks. And again, I think Walker is kind of like a 4.5. five, Hendricks is a four. Asara is, you know, very solidly, like in the middle of the lineup there,

what I would call a true wing, you know, and then just a guy who can really speed around and keep up with, with most anybody. So it just plays a different defensive role. And I guess you could argue possibly a more valuable defensive rule, that these are the guys who, I mean, there are, of course, defenders at other positions, like, well, we'll put it this way. I mean, the guys who have the most defensive potential, and just in terms of potential defensive impact, are going to be your bigs, I mean, particularly your centers. But, you know, after that, you could argue it's really just these switchable wings

who aren't just kind of like okay on switches, who can actually, you know, who aren't even going to be targeted on switches, who can, who just have really the speed and the agility and the lateral movements and so on and so forth to just stick with many, many guys and play high-level defense on them. and are very much perimeter defenders. So we've gone over the athleticism, we've gone over the passing vision,

we've gone over the defense. And now when it comes to upsides as a scorer, what is the SARS upside to the score? Can he get it together as a shooter? I'd say he stands a fair chance of doing so. Oh, something I didn't mention. By all accounts, he and his brother, super strong work ethic,

and just absolutely and completely obsessed with the game of basketball and would just work very hard to improve and work very hard in the course. court as well. And also should mention this is along the same vein as athleticism. He's a killer transition player. He runs the floor extremely well. If you let him accelerate and jump off the two feet in transition, he's going to absolutely dunk from above the rim. You can talk about his vertical spacing as well that he can provide it around 6-6. You know, on cuts. And again, cut's not really a big source of offense at the NBA level, but he can definitely provide some vertical spacing.

And in transition as well, as a transition pass, he's strong too. So just, it's a strong. So just overall player in transition. Not going to be shooting those transition threes, but very few guys do that from on the ball. So that's just kind of a minor point. But his ceiling as a half court score, a shock could easily come together. You know, shock could easily become good. It does with some guys, particularly those who are willing to put a ton of work and in time and energy into it. It doesn't always happen. There are some guys who put a ton of work into it, like the Andre Roberson's of the world, who just never get there. And Asar is working from kind of a low point in terms of his form. But something about him tells me that he's a guy who could, you know, who could develop a new

reliable floor spacer. The question is, what can he create off the drive for himself? Is he a guy who's going to be able to overcome his struggles in terms of touch around the rim in terms of scoring through contact, which you've got to do at the NBA level? You know, if you're going to be a guy who's attacking off the dribble, you got to be able to score through contact, excuse me. And like, you don't necessarily count on any guy to develop, you know, a solid mid-range pull-up that's an incredibly difficult shot to convert on NBA acceptable efficiency. You know, if he can develop some sort of in-between game like a floater, cool, just, you know, the question is, where can he get as a scorer? Again, he's a guy who has all the

athleticism you could ask for, you know, who's got a decent enough handle, who's always going to be a threat to pass the ball, you're always going to have to respect that, you know, as an off-ball guy, you know, just attack and close-outs, assuming his shot is good enough for him to be closed out on, he'll be good at that. And it's valuable to have that guy who can attack closeouts and in either blaze his way to the basket or make the right pass, both of which he will be able to do. He can absolutely make the right pass off the dribble. And it's not just going to be the right pass. It's like we're going to be a good pass. And he's going to be able to probably find guys that the average player who's just attacking a closeout is not going to be able to. But what can he do off

the dribble? Can he attack? Is he going to be able to attack mismatches, for example? He's got the first step. But, you know, where is he in that capacity is just as a handler? You know, if you get him a good mismatch, and again, I think he'll put on weights, if you got put on weight, excuse me, if you got a guy who's, you know, I don't know, 220, 225, you know, who's pretty strong at 6.6. Is he going to be a guy who's going to be able to get switched onto guards, you know, under smaller guards, particularly point guards, and just attack them off the dribble? Is he going to have the handle to do that? Is he going to be a threat when he gets past them to score at the rim, you know, in situations when it makes sense for him not to pass, when it makes sense for him

to score. He can elevate around the rim, you know, he's not going to have any difficulty with that, but can he improve his issues with touch? Can he improve his issues with scoring through contact? I think that's, so you have two swing skills there, realistically. I mean, you have the shot and you have his ability to score at the rim. If he can attack off the dribble and if he can, and if he can shoot threes, then, you know, fantastic. You've got, you know, the makings of a very good player whom any team would want, these highly athletic 3-and-D and drive wings, which, you know, with passing upside on top of that, and that's not a skill set that many players have, and it's that combination, which is certainly the possibility of that combination, which is so,

which is enticing to, I would imagine, to many teams, I think the Pistons included, and this is going to have him, I would be surprised if he went outside the top eight. I'll put it that way. So that's what you're getting out of Asar. The reason that I've been so low on him is just again that he's far from a complete product on offense. And that makes me worried about his floor. It makes me worried about his ceiling as well. And if I were the pistons, you know, if I were making this election, like if I'd really seen all the data had him in for a workout and everything,

and I felt really good about him developing a shot. You know, if I were able to take a look into the front office's data and the front office's experience with him and see, okay, this is a guy who stands a real good shot at improving in that capacity and being a reliable shooter, then fantastic. I feel a lot better about it. However, I don't have access to that data. None of us do.

And it's just tough for me to look at Cade and at Ivy and at Duren. at all of whom we need spacing. You know, Cade and Ivy for attacking the basket. And having a guy, not only attacking the basket, but having guys high percentage play finishers from the perimeter to pass the ball to. Not just, hey, you know, this guy can space the floor him and his defender's going to have to cover him.

But, hey, we can get this guy to ball, especially if his defender collapses to try to stop one of those guys. We can get him the ball, and we can trust that he's going to be able to shoot the three to high percentage. So for Caden Ivy and for Duren, I mean, it's just spacing as a consideration because having, unless you've got some like super elite offensive players on the floor. And we're talking like, you know, the Durant, Kyrie Hardin, Nets, or, you know, the Warriors. I mean, it's, it's real tough to have only three shooters in the

floor. You've got to be a team that's really not depending on those lanes to the basket. The team that that is really can easily just depend on extremely elite offball shooters or just guys you can hand the ball to and say here, just, you know, create off the dribble. So you can't really very viably, I mean, who knows what the future will bring in terms of development, but chances are you do not want another non-shooter on the floor with Duren. You know, you, you've got him on the floor, you've got to have four guys around him who can shoot. So it's not just Caden Ivy, it's also Duren because he's going to be, I don't think he's likely to ever be a shooter, even if he can shoot. I mean, it makes the most sense for him to be around the basket. You're losing his rebounding,

losing what I think will be pretty ultimately fairly high-level finishing around the basket. I think he'll get, I think he's the likeliest to get it together in terms of his layups. He dunks a lot, but he struggled on layups this past season. But he's going to be a guy. You're going to want to have any interior, hopefully if he's serving as an interior passer as well. So, and that's one of the misgivings that comes up when Walker is brought into the equation because I think he'll do a lot of his work from the interior as well. but I would just be very reluctant as the Pistons to sign on to the possibility of drafting

worse spacing around Caden Ivy and again you're not spacing the floor necessarily quite as much around Duren for that you know just for the possible you know just for the purpose of having spacing around Duren it's just that if you have him on the floor you can't really have another non-shooter out there you know you only get one of those and he'd better darn well be at center unless you're a very special case so that is my concern just the the fact that we got to worry about the shooting in the first place. The shooting has to come along, no exceptions, if you're basically any perimeter player, and certainly in this situation.

And if the shooting comes along, you still got a ways to go in order for him to be that sort of complete offensive player whom you would hope to be drafting at number five. If just the shot comes along, then sure, you've got a strong 3-D wing, but you've, you know, you're still left probably if you're the pistons looking for your number three dude. And, you know, who knows? Maybe they're satisfied with him if he's just that strong three-and-d guy and he can't really do much creating for himself. You know, he can attack off the dribble from off the ball and be that sort of, you know, Phoenix era, me called Bridges. I mean, that's, maybe that's something the pistons to be satisfied with in a top five pick. And maybe

that's perfectly reasonable. I mean, you think about it, that's a very, very valuable player. there's just part of me that's thinking, man, I'd love for the Pistons to, you know, get that guy who can really be a creator and really be that number three option next to Cade and Ivy, both of whom I have a lot of confidence in. On the other hand, you hear me talking about how I'd like Taylor Hendricks. With Hendricks, I think there's something in the back of my head saying, you know, hey, this guy could get it together in terms of his handle. So, yeah, if I could look into the Pistons, if I could look into the front offices information and say, hey, I'm confident that he has the shot, that he can get together as a shooter, then I'd feel actually pretty decent taking him at number five. And maybe that's where they find themselves right now, because again, that combination of high-level athleticism, high-level processing, you know,

as a passer, high defensive upside. I mean, if you're able to couple that even with, you know, a high percentage three-point shot, then you have yourself a very good player there. not an elite player but a very good player who can play a major role as a starter on a contender. So that's how I feel about a Sart Thompson. Of course, with where the Pistons are right now, basically anything can happen to the draft. It's going to be an interesting night. So as always, folks, thank you for listening. I'll catch you in the next episode.