Risky Boom-or-Bust Prospect #3: Ausar Thompson, Overtime Elite
All three of the riskiest prospects in the 2023 draft class are slated to go in the lottery, which makes their boom-or-bust potential that much more important. Wasting a first-round pick is never good, but wasting a lottery pick on a player who doesn’t pan out at a star level can be the difference between a GM getting to see out a championship vision or getting fired the next year.
Ausar Thompson, alongside his brother Amen, serves as the prototypical litmus test of the boom-or-bust mentality. From the boom side, Thompson is one of the best athletes that the NBA has seen in a while, combining jaw-dropping athleticism, vertically, horizontally, and diagonally to hint at a superstar ceiling:
First clip: Ausar Thompson gets the steal and flashes his athleticism for the easy dunk.
— GREENLIGHT MEDIA (@atlgreenlight) December 10, 2022
Second clip: Ausar forces Rob to turn it over and makes the correct read in transition.
Stellar defensive wing prospect. @OvertimeElite pic.twitter.com/UpkNuKaOGR
He’s a good ball-handler, is a heady wing defender, and has shown more growth with his jump shot than his brother Amen. That jumper will be the barometer of success for Ausar once he enters the NBA, as right now it’s so much of a negative that teams will play as far, if not farther off of him as they did Ben Simmons.
If the jump shot never improves for Thompson, he can likely top out as a solid starter who makes the right pass, finishes plays, and guards well on the perimeter. That’s a fine outcome, but not for a lottery pick. If he can have any semblance of a jumper, Thompson’s ceiling skyrockets up to all-star level, as his mix of athleticism and skill would be almost impossible to stop on the wing.