It’s no secret that the Detroit Pistons would like to extend Ausar Thompson this offseason, but the final numbers are up for debate.
The Rockets set the ceiling for Thompson by giving $205 million to his twin brother, but if we are being honest, they are very different players even though they share identical DNA.
Amen is the far superior offensive player, and even though most agree Ausar is the better defender, it’s not by a wide margin.
Ausar Thompson is not getting anywhere near 200 million, and according to the Game Theory Podcast, he should probably get less than half of that.
The hosts offered up the perfect salary comparison for Ausar Thompson and it’s not his brother, it’s Dyson Daniels.
Ausar Thompson should get Dyson Daniels money at least but not much more
Daniels signed an extension for 4 years, $100 million, which is the range in which the Pistons would love to keep Ausar Thompson.
The comparison makes sense when you look at Daniels’ third season in which he averaged 14 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.4 assists with 49/34/59 shooting splits. He won MIP, finished 2nd in the DPOY voting after leading the league in steals and ended up on the All-Defense first team.
In his third season, Ausar Thompson averaged 10 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists on 52/25/57 shooting splits. Ausar also led the league in steals, finished 3rd in the DPOY voting and was selected to the All-Defense first team.
Both guys are elite defenders with offensive limitations, which we saw from Daniels last season when his scoring took a big step back.
But if we are comparing the year before their respective extensions, it is easy to say that Ausar shouldn’t get any more than Daniels got, and if we are going strictly by the numbers, he should probably get less.
Ausar Thompson isn’t going to like it
Thompson probably saw what his twin brother got and thought he’d get close to the same, but that’s not going to happen.
Even though the Pistons believe in Thompson as their second-best player, he still hasn’t had the offensive leap that Daniels made in his third season, so it’s hard to justify paying him much more.
Detroit will probably go higher, and Thompson’s camp will point to guys like Jalen Suggs and Keegan Murray as examples instead of Daniels, but those two contracts are now viewed as bad deals, so the Pistons will want no part of it.
Eventually, they will likely settle somewhere between 25-30 million a year, but the Pistons may have to play hardball again, and we may not see a resolution to this if Thompson wants to do what Duren did and bet on himself next year.
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