Detroit Pistons: How Ausar Thompson’s Contract Looks With Modest Offensive Improvement

With such big ticket items on the offseason docket, the Detroit Pistons needed to be careful when negotiating a rookie scale extension for Ausar Thompson and a new long-term deal for Jalen Duren. In actuality, Duren was eligible for a super-max contract worth well over $280 million for five years after he was selected to the All-NBA Third Team this past season. 

Now, that’s an exorbitant amount of money to have locked up long-term for the Pistons after Duren’s infamous playoff struggles against the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers. Duren did average 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds last season, but the big man left something to be desired during crunch time in the postseason when the game slows down. 

Since the max contract was too rich for Detroit’s blood, the team worked to find an agreement that’s more palatable for both parties, but an announcement on that deal is still waiting. So, the Pistons moved onto Ausar Thompson in an attempt to secure the league’s top perimeter defender for the next several years and now have him on the books for $155 over the next five years. 

Given that type of money, the Pistons are committing a legitimate portion of their cap space to a player that’s broadly criticized for his lack of an outside jumper and relative inefficiency as a creator. Last year, AT hit triples at just a 25% rate while averaging 9.9 points overall, so his offensive game is quite clearly lagging behind after three years. But instead of finding themselves in an awkward waiting game for months during the offseason like the Pistons have been in with Duren recently, the organization opted to secure Thompson’s future when the time was right. 

Despite the one-sided nature of his game, Thompson the Pistons made a half-decade commitment to their premier on-ball defender at the point of attack with the hopes that he will add to his game offensively over the next several years. Most recently during the playoffs, the Cavs left Thompson open on the perimeter on a number of occasions because he simply wasn’t a threat to knock down outside shots and Cleveland knew it. 

But at the beginning of Thompson’s five-year contract, he’s only going to account for roughly 15% of the Pistons’ cap space, which gives Detroit more than enough financial space to build a quality contender around him with Cade Cunningham at the helm and Jalen Duren down low. In that sense, the Pistons made an intelligent front office decision with their evaluation for Thompson considering how unique his defensive playmaking ability is. Naturally, the Pistons would benefit substantially if Thompson is able to develop a jumper at this stage of his career to turn into a proper three-and-D weapon. 

But if AT were to become slightly more aggressive offensively while hitting just one or two more shots per game with modest improvement from the free throw line, we could be talking about a player who consistently puts up 15-18 points per game while providing lockdown defense in the other direction. That type of production with elite on-ball defense for an average of $31 million per season is a steal in the modern NBA, and Thompson’s team-friendly contract could allow the franchise to add more quality over the next couple seasons.