{"id":838768,"date":"2026-09-19T06:27:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T06:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/838768\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T06:27:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T06:27:43","slug":"pistons-ausar-thompson-agree-to-five-year-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/838768\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons, Ausar Thompson Agree To Five-Year Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pistons forward Ausar Thompson<\/a> has agreed to a five-year, $155MM rookie scale extension, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter<\/a> links<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"Thompson\u2019s new contract is fully guaranteed, per Charania, and doesn\u2019t contain any type of option, confirms Hunter Patterson of The Athletic (via Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Charania reported<\/a> earlier on Friday that Thompson and the Pistons were actively talking about an extension and said at the time there was optimism about a deal being reached.<\/p>\n

Thompson, one of the NBA\u2019s premier defenders, finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2025\/26 and earned a spot on the All-Defensive first team. He helped Detroit go 60-22 last season by averaging 9.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists, an NBA-best 2.0 steals and 0.9 blocks in 73 regular season contests (26.0 minutes per game).<\/p>\n

The fifth overall pick in the 2023 draft, Thompson also appeared in 14 playoff games for the Pistons in 2025\/26, averaging 8.2 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 3.1 APG, 2.0 SPG and 1.8 BPG in 30.5 MPG.<\/p>\n

Thompson will earn $11.12MM this season in the final year of his rookie scale contract. His extension, which begins in 2027\/28, is worth a reported $31MM annually. That\u2019s the same base value that Keyonte George<\/a> received from the Jazz earlier on Friday, though George\u2019s deal also contains unlikely incentives ($500K per year).<\/p>\n

Thompson is arguably the top perimeter defender in the NBA, with a unique combination of size, strength, athleticism, skill, anticipation and awareness, and he\u2019s also an excellent rebounder and a plus play-maker for a small forward. However, while Thompson has converted 52.5% of his career field goal attempts, he\u2019s essentially a non-shooter, having made just 20.4% of his career three-pointers and 60.0% of his free throws.<\/p>\n

Still, the Pistons have been much better<\/a> with Thompson on the court in each of his first three seasons despite his limitations as a shooter. And clearly the team values his contributions and believes he\u2019ll continue to get better.<\/p>\n

In his full story for ESPN.com<\/a>, Charania notes that Thompson and his identical twin Amen Thompson<\/a> are the first brothers in NBA history to each sign a contract worth $100MM+. Amen, who was the fourth pick in 2023, received a five-year, $208MM rookie scale extension from the Rockets earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The Pistons remain engaged in contract talks with restricted free agent center Jalen Duren<\/a>, according to Charania, who says Detroit has offered the third-team All-NBA center a deal in the range of $190MM+. Duren is still hoping to make more than that, but the team believes its offers have been fair, Charania adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pistons forward Ausar Thompson has agreed to a five-year, $155MM rookie scale extension, according to Shams Charania of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[883,1026,7,912,6],"class_list":["post-838768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-amen-thompson","tag-ausar-thompson","tag-basketball","tag-jalen-duren","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117296290101379985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}