The defender gets paid first
Detroit just handed $155 million to a player who averaged 9.9 points a game. Ausar Thompson agreed to a five-year rookie-scale extension overnight, fully guaranteed, and on the scoring line alone the number looks absurd.
Everything else explains it. First Team All-Defense last season. A league-leading two steals per night and close to a block on top. Seventy-three starts for a team that won 60 games. Detroit were 7.5 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor than without him.
At roughly $31 million a year, the contract is a bet, and nobody is hiding which part. Thompson shot 25 percent from three last season and that figure was an improvement. Defences ignore him beyond the arc and dare the Pistons to make it cost them.
Try it for $0.99.
Two brothers, two nine-figure contracts
Amen Thompson signed for five years and $208 million with Houston earlier this summer. The twins went back to back in the 2023 draft, Amen fourth to the Rockets and Ausar fifth to the Pistons, and they are now the first pair of brothers in league history to each sign a deal worth more than $100 million.
Amen carries the offensive game. Ausar owns the better defensive record, though his brother made an All-Defensive team two seasons ago. Both are freak athletes by the standards of a league full of them.
Duren is the one still waiting
Jalen Duren has not signed anything. The restricted free agent comes off an All-Star season and an All-NBA selection, and Detroit have reportedly put five years and $190 million on the table. Duren is holding out for an average of at least $40 million. That gap is not closing by itself.
Hidden inside the money is a basketball problem. Duren and Thompson on the floor together means two non-shooters, which is precisely how Orlando and Cleveland packed the paint during Detroit’s playoff run. That group won 60 games and went out in the second round.
Cade Cunningham is already locked in. Thompson now sits on the books into the next decade, which is how long the jump shot has to show up.
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