An OTE Check-In: Do the Thompsons Have A Finishing Problem?
Hyped as great athletes with ridiculously high ceilings, the numbers in the half-court might reveal some questions with their touch
The additions of Overtime Elite and the G-League Ignite programs have caused a disruption to the status quo of NBA scouting. These unique pathways — and the differing levels of competition that surround them — complicate the portfolio for each prospect. Scouts are struggling to know just how much to rely on the statistics, what to do with the level of play around/ against the prospects, and just how translatable their roles are to the next level.
For us, no more difficult evaluation exists than the one at OTE. Highly-talented high schoolers with great athletic tools are jammed into this program, with very few shooting specialists and minimal floor spacing. It’s easy, therefore, to see the lack of direct translatability of what we see on the floor there to how things will be in the NBA. One strategy, which could be effective, would be to only evaluate tools and excuse performance or metrics altogether.
When we dive into the numbers, we see some concerning trends when it comes to Amen and Ausar Thompson, two potential top-ten selections with a ton of buzz around them for the 2023 NBA Draft. Both twins rate out fairly poorly in the half-court offensively, especially in terms of their finishing ability at the rim.
After bumping into those numbers last week, we wanted to do a deeper dive to figure out what they mean. Today, we seek to do so by answering these three questions:
Are the numbers as concerning as they seem?
What are the causes of the finishing inefficiencies in the half-court?
Why do those numbers matter in the context of projecting role to the NBA?
Understanding Trends of Play for Tempo
As I’ve grown as a scout over the last few years, I’ve learned little nuances for how to filter through numbers and what skills translate to winning basketball in the NBA. One such lesson I’ve grabbed onto this season is the impact of half-court play and the need to isolate half-court numbers more than just looking at the overall profile, influenced by transition.
That’s important to us because the game changes a lot in terms of pace from one level to the other, particularly from high school to college. In the NBA, transition is far less prevalent than it is at lower levels. The average college basketball program spends about 15.5% of their possessions in transition. Only 31 of the 363 Division I programs (less than 10%) spend more than 20% of their possessions in transition.
In the NBA, those numbers hover around the same mark; the average team spends about 15% of the time in transition. However, everything is spread more evenly across the board, as pace isn’t as easy to impose on an opponent. Only one team — the Sacramento Kings — are above the 20% mark. Last year, the highest mark was 19.1%.
The City Reapers are seeing a whopping 30.8% of their offensive possessions take place in transition. The high school and OTE levels of play allow for more free-flowing play: teams turn it over more, full-court pressure exists, and in general, athletic players can get away with doing more in the open court, so they tend to push tempo more.
When trying to get an evaluation of Amen and Ausar in the Overtime Elite program, it’s worth noting that we might see a 50% reduction of their time spent in transition at the next level, making their half-court impacts all the more meaningful to get a grasp of their professional translation. Below, we dive into the half-court numbers and film to see just how advanced they are in the setting — without the context of transition trying to impact our view of their ceiling and athletic gifts.
Amen Thompson
As of February 7th, here were Thompson’s scoring metrics in the half-court, according to Synergy Sports Tech:
First and foremost, we need to contextualize those finishing numbers in comparison to others. The 12 dunks is a decently high number for a player of his position, and the runner is effective enough to be its own weapon; you cannot leave out the extended layups when examining his own finishing package.
But how do these numbers stack up in comparison to others? We’ve sent out several tweets looking at the top prospects in college basketball, many of whom are at least in the mid-40s in terms of layup efficiency. Amen isn’t that far behind them, but the difference in level of play is what raises some eyebrows: there’s a feeling that Thompson should be able to convert and dominate against other high school-aged prospects.
Amen’s physical tools and ability to separate are what create most of his layup makes in OTE. When he attacks decisively off the catch, quickly rips through closeouts, or is able to use his fantastic dribble moves to get away from defenders, he gives himself time and space to finish effectively.
When the lane is filled with defenders — and it almost certainly is occupied far more than it will be at the NBA level — he struggles more. His left hand needs some obvious work on finishes, but he has a really far takeoff point, undoubtedly due to his exceptional athleticism. Amen will leave his feet for layup attempts and run out of real estate to adjust himself, or be a tad too far from the hoop for touch finishes. He line-drives a lot of them, hasn’t mastered where to aim while his body is fading a bit, and gets in trouble picking up his dribble in the 8-12 foot range before embarking into a step-thru. There’s a lot going on, and several areas that appear very fixable.
It’s important to understand the how and not just the what. Amen’s rim finishing in the half-court is drastically different than anything in transition because of how defenses set toward him. On January 20th, the City Reapers took on YNG Dreamerz within the OTE program. While the Reapers had a supercharged comeback victory (due to their ability to play in transition), there were several challenges presented in the first-half — particularly with Amen.
The Dreamerz sagged off him dangerously, daring him to shoot. Amen took the bait, launching several jump shots en route to finishing 5-14 from the field. His jumper is still so far away, both in impact and based on his form. He missed shots with his feet set or not set, sprayed his shots to miss left/ right instead of based on distance, and had no consistency with his bend.
To us, it’s no coincidence that the Reapers trailed early in a game where Amen was getting them up.
The sagging off causes a ripple effect on how Amen is guarded the rest of the way. In order to get into the lane and put pressure on the basket, he’s forced to drive a little wider to get around his sagged-off man. As soon as he turns on the jets and tries to get past his man, the Dreamerz would send help defenders at the bucket to collapse on Amen.
This resulted in several of his four turnovers on the day, as well as wild layup misses. He constantly tried to drive into traffic, split double-teams, or would be going 100 MPH into set defenders, making it harder for kickouts.
Amen is an excellent passer, his saving grace in the half-court. If you look at the three positive playmaking attempts he got to in that game, they all came in a much more controlled fashion. He would make his decision to pass before penetrating beneath the elbow, he wouldn’t be trying to go his absolute fastest off the bounce, and he was proactive in kicking as soon as defenders lunged toward him.
What a difference between trying to drive through or around them and what we saw in those last few clips. Amen is going to be guarded a certain way due to the shooting challenges, and he has to learn cerebrally how to overcome that. Taking a jumper or two each night just to keep the defense honest is smart. But the first half against YNG Dreamerz was far too much on that front, and every time he drove afterward, he did so against a set defense that was ready to collapse on him.
Perhaps Amen’s finishing numbers will improve when he’s surrounded by better spacing, real shooting threats, and defensive three seconds prevents teams from camping out in front of the rim. There are some skill tweaks he can make to his finishing package, but the most striking part of his challenges in January comes down to the lack of free-flowing ability to understand how to attack the unique way he’s guarded.
What’s clear is that he’ll almost certainly have more space to operate at the NBA level, so many of the issues for how he’s guarded and how that impacts his finishing will go away. That said, the relationship between his lack of a jumper and less-than-ideal rim finishing is abundantly clear.
Ausar Thompson
Playing second-fiddle in the OTE offense, Ausar has the ball in his hands far less than twin brother Amen. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that such usage results in fewer rim attempts, where he only has 28 in 17 games. Ausar has been much more of a dribble pull-up guy: he’s taken 36 in the half-court.
That lines up with a small athletic observation we made with Ausar as a passer: he’s much more proactive. Ausar likes to take one, maybe two bounces off a ball screen and then zip the ball around to find the open man. He isn’t a live-dribble creator in the sense that he’ll get close to the bucket and then throw a dart to an open teammate. Ausar is much more comfortable quickly making decisions and operating from 13 feet and outward.
The same constraints show up in his lack of finishing attempts and success at the rim. Ausar doesn’t find himself attacking downhill to score too frequently, as his drives are far more measured and not at top speed. He has similar struggles with his left and his takeoff point to Amen, but because Ausar lacks the same level of burst and vertical hangtime of his brother, the tools don’t indicate as much optimism that he can overcome them.
As of February 7th, here were Ausar’s scoring metrics in the half-court, according to Synergy Sports Tech:
The film is slightly better in terms of process, but going 6-23 on half-court layups for a potential lottery pick is not easy to swallow. Ausar’s challenges come rooted in him trying to play so quickly when attacking the bucket. We mentioned the higher pickup point and desire to create from outside of 13 feet. Once Ausar commits to driving past that point, he commits himself to finishing, making it much easier for help defenders to alter his shot.
While he does have some real finishing craft and touch, many of his makes come from a high degree of difficulty and his misses come through contact:
Frankly, we’re much more worried about Ausar as a finisher than we are with Amen. His role in the NBA will be different considering he isn’t as explosive, struggles more at the bucket to convert, and tends to be less able to adjust to the defense once he’s inside of ten feet. That leverages impact on his jumper a lot more, which goes hand-in-hand with what we’ve been saying the whole cycle: Ausar is more polished in several areas right now, but his game is far more dependent on having a high-level jump shot, making him a riskier proposition than his brother.
A Warning Moving Forward
As a draft scout, I tend to be a lot more risk-averse. The reason for that: I attack my prospect rankings as if I were the decision-maker for a team, not a guy on the internet who has zero consequence for throwing an opinion in a blog post and hoping it’s correct. Part of being a decision-maker for a team means knowing there are certain risks, players, and challenges you aren’t willing to take. That can be based on character, position type, or other types of red flags.
The closer we get to the end of this draft cycle, the more I find myself treading into that camp with the Thompson Twins. It’s so easy to see the upside — the generational tools, the passing feel, the size, and defensive upside. But there’s a huge investment that goes into taking a player in the top five (or anywhere in the lottery, really) that makes those picks the ones that teams cannot afford to miss on. And the more data we’re collecting from the Overtime Elite experiment, the riskier the Thompsons become.
Their individual statistical profiles aren’t great in a half-court setting, where NBA games are played at the highest level. Nobody knows what exactly to make of those stats, considering the talent they go against, usually subpar floor-spacing that exists when not surrounded by shooters, and small sample of games. The film is telling, and while there are different concerns for Amen and Ausar, there are some glaring issues that are not simply excused due to floor spacing.
What’s more telling is that how they are being guarded within their own program — being dared to shoot and completely collapsed on in the lane — is effectively changing their impact. We’ve got a lot of concerns that seem like orange flags right now, worth monitoring to see if any of them become red flags.