Pine Crest alum Ausar Thompson goes back-to-back with twin brother in top 5 of NBA draft

Ausar Thompson and his twin brother made an unorthodox move two years ago to skip their final years of high school in Florida, and instead turn professional with Overtime Elite.

It certainly worked out. Both Ausar and Amen Thompson are now top-five picks, going back to back after Ausar Thompson went No. 5 overall to the Detroit Pistons in the first round of the 2023 NBA draft Thursday.

His twin brother went just one spot earlier to the Rockets at No. 4.

The Thompson twins are the first two players ever to be drafted out of Overtime’s upstart professional league and were Overtime Elite’s two signature stars for the its first two seasons.

Last year, they were teammates with City Reapers and won the Overtime Elite championship together, and Ausar Thompson was the best player in the league. The 6-foot-6, 215-pound shooting guard averaged 16.3 points, 7.1 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 1.1 blocks and 2.4 steals per game, and was the most valuable player of both the league and the Overtime Elite Finals.

Thompson was also MVP of the Finals in 2021 for Team Elite, besting his brother for the championship.

Both were first-team All-Overtime Elite selections this year. For both, the only clear flaw in their game is their shooting ability, and Thompson shot just 29.8 percent from three-point range and 66.2 percent from the free-throw line this year.

Before they were pioneering NBA prospects for Overtime, the Thompsons were superstars at Pine Crest, playing four years of varsity in Fort Lauderdale and leading the Panthers to the Class 3A championship in 2021. They were the Miami Herald’s Broward County Boys’ Basketball Co-Players of the Year for Classes 4A-2A in 2021 as juniors, and then decided to skip their final seasons of high school to go play in Overtime Elite (OTE) for its inaugural season.

They spent two years in Atlanta as part of OTE, which consists of players from the ages of 16-20.

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Although they’re originally from Oakland, the Thompsons truly rose to stardom once they moved to South Florida in middle school. They enrolled at Pine Crest because the Panthers would give them a chance to play varsity in eighth grade, struggled for three years in the same district as NSU University — led then by NBA forwards Vernon Carey Jr. and Scottie Barnes — and finally won Pine Crest its fourth state title in 2021 once they were upperclassmen.

In the title game, Thompson scored 20 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter, leaving his twin brother to lead a miracle comeback past Alachua Santa Fe in overtime. The Panthers were down by eight in the final minute of OT before Thompson scored eight straight points in 45 seconds to force a second overtime and eventually get the Panthers the victory.

They both decided to sign with OTE a few months later, both ranked at the time as top-35 prospects in the 247Sports composite rankings for the Class of 2022.