Outside of some occasional highlights, I have yet to watch tape on the twins, because there is no value to it. They should be college sophomores, yet are playing against high school competition. There is nothing they can possibly do to prove that they are good enough for the NBA in this setting.
Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence, but they are highly correlated in the draft. There are such few players that make a big impact in the NBA, and the vast majority of them who do showed some ability to perform at a high level vs NCAA, International, or G-League competition. Mystery boxes on occasion have hit it big (i.e. Giannis), but much more frequently bust.
But the problem for the twins is that they are 2 years older than pre-draft Giannis, so they do not have that chunky upside tail of development from ages 18 to 20 where huge gains are plausible. This is a double whammy because the twins have already realized those gains, and they are playing opponents who mostly have not. By age 20, Giannis was already a solid NBA player while the Thompsons are stealing candy from babies in OTE.
And more worrisome, their statistics were not that amazing. While they stuffed the statsheet with rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks, they only averaged ~16 points each in 27-28 minutes per game with lukewarm efficiency and over 3 turnovers per game. They are both subpar shooters, and nothing about their performance suggests an NBA level of offensive competence.
Some will argue that their stats were acceptable given they were blowing out the competition. But if there are two 20 year old NBA prospects playing against high school competition, the least they can do is beat the brakes off the competition. Especially considering that the team was good enough to win by 38 points in the one game that both twins did not play— the team’s 2nd largest margin of victory on the year.
The twins did play a handful of games vs. adult competition— they played 6 international exhibition games and 1 game in The Basketball Tournament. Two of the international games were against teams in lower divisions that never have a whiff of NBA prospects, so that leaves 5 real games.
In those games they went 0-5 and lost by an average of 9.6 points. Amen averaged 28.7 mins, 15.2 pts, 6.4 rebs, 4.2 ast, 2.6 tov, 2.6 stl, 1.2 blk. Ausar averaged 27.8 mins, 10.2 pts, 5.2 rebs, 4.2 ast, 3 tov, 1.4 stl, 0.6 blk. Most people seemed to draw the conclusion that this meant Amen was good, but it was only a 5 game sample. Let’s take a moment to compare their season long stats per 40 minutes including the international sample:
Amen has slightly more assists, lower turnovers, and a notable advantage in 2P%. Amen is considered the better athlete and has slightly better stats, so give him the edge, but they are extremely similar prospects.
So to beef up our sample we can smush their stats together to make a 10 game sample in a makeshift attempt to measure their goodness. Note that over these games the twins combined for an abysmal 6.3% 3P (1/30), which is certainly bad variance to some degree. Out of the kindness of our hearts let’s give them an additional 5 makes and pretend they shot a more reasonable 20% from 3P.
We are working with an extremely small sample of extremely vague comps, but let’s try a quick and dirty comparison of the most similar-ish international prospects playing the most similar-ish competition in recent memory.
This is quick and dirty so none of this is pace adjusted or minute adjusted. Just raw numbers. Per game stats:
The twins played 1 game vs ACB team (best league in Europe outside of Euroleague), 2 Adriatic games (solid league comparable to France), and 1 Australian game (slightly lower tier). All teams were slightly below average in their respective leagues, averaging out to -3.1 point differential. Omaha Blue Crew who they played in TBT lost in the following round by 6 points, for whatever that’s worth.
LaMelo Ball played on the dead worst team in Australia, and they averaged -7 PD in his 14 games and -13.1 in the games he missed. He was 19 months younger than the twins, and still managed to destroy them statistically with more raw output and a lower turnover ratio. He was a bad shooter at the time, but has become a very good shooter in the NBA because players can make large leaps from age 18 to 20. LaMelo absolutely destroys the Thompson twins as a prospect, and it is pure comedy that Amen has a similar level of draft hype to him.
Josh Giddey also played in Australia at a super young age, but on a more respectable team. He also has a higher rebound rate than the twins and destroys them as a passer in spite of his youth, although he was not the same scorer as LaMelo or the twins. But that was merely a function of youth, as he averaged 16.6/7.9/6.2 this past NBA season while being just 3 months older than the twins.
Nic Batum slightly trailed the twins in bulk production across the board playing for a slow paced team, but destroyed them in terms of efficiency playing for the best team in France while being almost a full year younger. He should clearly be valued higher than them as well.
Among the other guys, it gets fuzzy because the twins played a different role. They have more length, athleticism, and rebound, assist, steal, and block rates, so they fit a higher upside mold. But they are most busted as shooters than the rest, and their team got destroyed which adds the risk that these are empty calorie stats.
Their tools and box score stuffing is highly correlated with upside in part because it is indicative of defensive potential. But their team performed horribly, which suggests that this may be empty calories output. And from a few clips they do not seem to have the best effort or fundamentals, which is not going to improve by playing in a fake high school basketball league.
So who should be projected to be a better defensive player in the NBA— the twins and their physical tools and playmaking ability, or Cedi Osman who was a solid role player for the best team in Turkey which is the third best non-NBA league after ACB and Euroleague? Or how about Deni Avdija, who played in a weaker Israeli league but on a dominant team and was considered a high IQ and fundamentally sound defensive player?
These guys are playing for real professional teams and learning real fundamentals and how to execute actual schemes, which is crucial for NBA success. The twins on the other hand will be trying to learn to play serious defense from serious coaching against serious competition for the first time in their lives as 21 year old rookies. That is a late start that could cause them to fail on that end in spite of all of their natural advantages.
And if they are not good on defense, it’s hard to imagine their offense being worth it without a miracle shooting leap. Do you really want to play them on ball? They have super loose handles and are not putting out exceptionally good scoring output for their ages, and while they can make some passes they are extremely far behind prospects like LaMelo Ball and Josh Giddey as floor generals.
So what is the realistic hope for them? It’s difficult to see them becoming Andre Iguodala while being so far behind defensively at the same age. We cannot completely write them off from becoming something given their tools and instincts, but we can probably write them off from reaching any exciting outcome based on their low skill level and suspect defensive IQ and fundamentals.
Everybody loves gambling on the mystery box upside, but the twins have a much thicker downside tail than upside. They aren’t even that mysterious, as they clearly have some major flaws that are especially bad given their ages. They are obviously inferior to Anthony Black, who fits a similar mold but has a much better median and upside.
If you want to gamble on a mystery box, why not take Bilal Coulibaly higher? Coulibaly may not be as athletic, but he is 1” taller, 2” longer, 18 months younger, and moves well enough. He also played a significant role for a real team that went to the finals in a real league while the twins were playing in their Chuck E. Cheese league.
The most important signal in the draft is being good at basketball. The easiest way to prove this is by performing well vs. competition of a similar or older age in a serious league. It’s difficult to fathom getting excited over drafting the guys playing younger competition in a joke league. Not only does it make the NBA translation fuzzy with much more downside than upside, but it has the additional concern it may be too late for them to start learning defense.
There is likely some point in the draft where the Thompsons provide a worthwhile value proposition, but it is difficult to discern when. The only thing that is clear is that point will come later than when they actually go off the board, as Amen is currently projected #4 and Ausar is projected #6.
This is a bold stance by you and I applaud standing by your analysis. I have been reading your commentary for about 10 years now and can say that while you have had a few wrong turns, about 98% of your projections are about right. In your column earlier this year, you discussed the Twins and compared them to other OTE players including Jayden Quittance, a 16 year old and currently ranked as the #25 pick in the 2025 draft. Adding together rebounds, assists, blocks and steals (thanks John Hollinger!), Quitance was better than the twins.
My biggest concern is that my Raptors are picking at 13 and should take one of Anthony Black, Cason Wallace, Kobe Bufkin, Gradey Dick or Jordan Hawkins(?). If youtake the twins out, how do you get to 12 guys and still have good choices at 13? Maybe they’re stuck taking Amen and then we pray you’re wrong? Probably not a winning strategy.
Thanks for your analysis.