Ausar Thompson goes from 70th to 23rd on our 9-cat board when you punt threes and free throws

Ausar Thompson is the most extreme player in fantasy basketball this season, and the right price for him depends almost entirely on which categories your roster has already decided to give up. He led the NBA with 2.0 steals a game last season and made the All-Defensive First Team, and Detroit signed him to a five-year, $155 million extension in September, as NBA.com and TSN both reported. Our projections give him 2.2 steals a night, the most of any player we project, beside about a block, but also 0.2 threes and 61% free-throw shooting, two categories in which he actively hurts a roster.

On a balanced 9-cat roster those two weaknesses cancel most of his defense, and he ranks 70th on our board against 72nd on the analysts' consensus, a sixth-round player on both. On a roster that has stopped competing in threes and free throws he becomes one of the most efficient picks in the draft, and in ESPN points leagues the four points ESPN pays for every steal and block make him a better pick than either consensus suggests. We already covered him as the cheapest source of both defensive stats in the steals and blocks guide; this piece is about the builds he fits and how far each one moves him.

Every player in this story is on the fantasy basketball rankings and the 2026-27 projections, and the NBA depth charts show where each one stands in his team’s rotation tonight.