Pine Crest alum Amen Thompson makes history as first Overtime player picked in NBA Draft
Amen Thompson and his twin brother are trail blazers in the basketball world, skipping their senior years of high school in Florida to go professional with Overtime Elite and try to carve a new path to the NBA.
For at least the twins, it has all worked out. Thompson is headed to the Houston Rockets as the No. 4 overall pick in the first round of the 2023 NBA draft Thursday — the first player ever drafted out of Overtime’s upstart professional league — and Ausar Thompson was selected one pick later by the Detroit Pistons at No. 5.
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 the league, which consists of players from the ages of 16 to 20 and teamed up to win an OTE championship this year with City Reapers. They also both were named to first-team All-OTE this year and Ausar Thompson was the MVP of the league.
Amen Thompson, however, wound up as the top draft prospect, as the slightly better playmaker and athlete. The 6-foot-6, 215-pound guard averaged 16.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.3 steals per game this year and shot 56.6 percent from the field. For both brothers, the biggest flaw is shooting, and Amen Thompson shot just 25.0 percent from three-point range and 65.6 percent from the free-throw line.
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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 Davie 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.
By then, the Thompsons were both regarded as elite prospects, in the top 35 of the 247Sports composite rankings when they decided to sign with OTE, and Amen Thompson capped his time in Broward County with an eye-popping performance in the 3A title game in 2021.
After Ausar Thompson fouled out in the fourth quarter, the Panthers were down by eight points to Alachua Santa Fe in the last minute of overtime and Thompson scored eight straight points in 45 seconds to keep Pine Crest’s season alive. The Panthers eventually won in double overtime with Thompson scoring 43 points.
The Thompsons will also be the second and third Pine Crest alumni to be drafted into the NBA, joining guard Brandon Knight, who was the No. 8 pick by the Pistons in the 2011 NBA Draft.
