The Detroit Pistons have an important long-term extension to work out with Ausar Thompson this offseason
During his third season as a pro, Detroit Pistons wing Ausar Thompson made a leap from the class of quality defenders to the exclusive group of elite on-ball shutdown specialists that comprise the All-Defensive First Team.
At 6-7, Thompson has the length and timing to disrupt small and power forwards alike while also containing the speed and active hands to put the clamps on isolation juggernauts from the perimeter, so his versatility on that end has become a major weapon for the Detroit Pistons.
Last year, Thompson led the NBA with two steals per game, and it quickly became apparent that the third-year swingman was built differently than most other defenders. Although Thompson struggled with foul trouble early during the season, the Overtime Elite product reigned in his discipline over the course of the season en route to winning the Eastern Conference’s Defensive Player of the Month award twice— the only player to do so in the East.
Out West, San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama stands as the only man capable of stopping Thompson from winning multiple Defensive Player of the Year awards over the course of his career. In fact, this dynamic played out during the 2025-26 campaign as Wemby took home the DPOY title with Thompson finishing in third place, but the two players are remarkably different in terms of how they defend.
While Wemby’s size and length allows for the Spurs big man to help late and impact shots even from off-ball situations in the paint, Thompson relies more on crafty speed, timing and tenacity to rack up his stocks. That stylistic difference played out on the court, which is why Thompson isolated himself in the top right corner on a graph that logs both deflections and stop percentage.
With a plethora of respected defenders on that chart, Thompson does not have much company in terms of being a player who ends possessions at a high rate while also causing a healthy portion of deflections along the way. But from a larger scale, that visual representation shows how unique Thompson’s brand of tenacious on-ball defense truly is when compared to other dogged defenders.
Right now, Thompson is about to enter his fourth year with the Pistons, but he’s eligible for a standard rookie scale contract extension before the regular season begins. That deal can go for as long as five seasons and can be worth up to 25% of the salary cap, so Thompson is going to receive a significant bump in pay from the $11.1 million that he’s slated to collect this year.
The only snag in that process is the Jalen Duren situation. So far, the Pistons have not been able to reach an agreement with the 22-year old All-Star center during his period of restricted free agency, so Detroit still has one major contract to sort out before moving on to Thompson’s extension.
Now, the Pistons do have the freedom to jump straight to Thompson’s contract before reaching a solution with Duren’s camp, but the more straightforward process would be to work out a deal with JD so that the team knows how much it can spend on their defensive centerpiece. Naturally, the Pistons would have to proceed carefully so as to not disrupt their relationship with Duren too much, but it is feasible for Ausar to wind up with a long-term deal before Duren does.
