THE DAY AFTER the visiting Denver Nuggets ended the Houston Rockets' nine-game winning streak in late March, Amen Thompson stepped in front of his teammates at the team's newly opened 75,000-square-foot training facility.
Finally, it was his turn in the team-bonding exercise: Tell your life story in five minutes.
"Everybody goes over the time," Thompson told ESPN.
He couldn't help it.
Spinning essentially the same two narratives into one as the Rockets leaned in closely to listen, the soft-spoken Thompson explained how the young man before them had grown up in the Oakland, California, area with an ultra-competitive identical twin brother, Ausar Thompson, born a minute later, in a supportive family that played an integral role in manifesting dreams jotted down on a family vision board as 9-year-olds.
"They're like that if you know their background and history," Houston coach Ime Udoka told ESPN. "So, we got to learn a little bit more about Amen's background than we already knew. Anytime you have a twin brother that's in the position that they're in, you just know they came up going at each other. Their father [Troy Thompson] got after them and obviously grew them into who they are. Their competitiveness was always there."
Amen and Ausar, now 22, are the first twins in league history to be drafted in the top five (Amen was drafted No. 4 by the Rockets and Ausar followed at No. 5 with the Detroit Pistons) and are making their playoff debuts in their second seasons as cornerstone pieces for a pair of franchises on the rise.
Amen admits he "wasn't expecting it," adding that Ausar "always believed since last year" that the twins would seriously vie for a Larry O'Brien Trophy in 2025.
"It's super cool," Ausar said. "Last year, Amen was talking a lot about us. They had 41 wins. We had 14. He was like, 'Flip the number around and that's how many wins y'all got.' But I was like, it doesn't matter. Y'all didn't make the playoffs. We didn't make the playoffs. Now he can't say that. We made the playoffs the same year. All he can say is they've got a better record. I promise you next year it won't be."
Amen's Rockets are down 0-1 to the Golden State Warriors, and will look to even the series Wednesday night. Ausar and the Pistons, meanwhile, snapped a 15-game postseason losing streak, the longest in NBA history, with a win over the New York Knicks on Monday night and will look to take a 2-1 lead as the series heads to Detroit on Thursday.
For now, though, Amen wants to focus on the present. He's "not doubting [Ausar's predictions] anymore" but envisions a grander picture for the Rockets and the Pistons in the 2025 playoffs.
"I want to see him in the Finals," Amen told ESPN. "That would be fire. But just one of us wins. I know who that's going to be."
Clearly, the brothers disagree.
"Man, we would whoop 'em," Ausar told ESPN. "This year, when we played, when we had all of our players, we beat them."
ON THE NIGHT the Rockets bested the Utah Jazz 143-105 to become the second Western Conference squad to punch its postseason ticket, Amen leaned back at his locker in the Toyota Center and chuckled, reminiscing about his family's vision board.
The twins' mother, Maya Wilson, forbade the boys from playing football. So, by age 7, their father, Troy, was running Amen and Ausar through basketball drills put together years before for their older brother, Troy Jr., who played at Prairie View A&M and is viewed by the twins as "the blueprint" for their success.
That daily grind sparked a dream for the twins, who share the middle name XLNC (pronounced "excellency").
"They're special people," Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff told ESPN of the Thompson family. "You can tell they instilled in them that the team was greater than any individual and that there was more to it than just being a good basketball player, and the importance of being able to take care of yourself mentally, physically, spiritually, all of it."
Thumbtacked to a wall in penmanship impressive for a pair of 9-year-olds, the Thompson family vision board was titled "Amen & Ausar's 6'9" Dreams," written in graffiti with markers above a drawing of a black-and-white camouflage Nike Air Foamposite One sneaker. Just underneath, the goals followed, each marked with a star.
Become The Greatest NBA Player of All-Time
Become a Multi-Billionaire
Get a shoe company
Become 6 ft. 9 inch[es]
"Yeah, my dad always believed in writing down what you wanted to do," Amen told ESPN. "It's writing down like basically just affirmations. I forget what I wrote. But it was just writing it down so that we have a guideline and things we needed to do to get there."
Below the goals, the twins wrote a 10-step daily to-do list just above their signatures scribbled in cursive.
"Some of the stuff in there was kind of crazy," Amen said. "We used to do it, though. But some of that stuff was hard to do every day."
No. 1 on the list was "run 2 miles dribbling left-handed," then "200 pushups, 200 sit-ups, 50 pull-ups, 500 calf raises, squat while watching TV." The last two steps were "eat vitamins every day, healthy foods, and milk," ending with No. 10: "hustle as hard as possible always."
Troy always wanted the boys to compete with the same relentless ferocity and hustle as Russell Westbrook. They acquiesced. Eventually, friendly pickup battles morphed into brawls. It reached the point that Troy no longer wanted his twins to play against each other one-on-one.
"Whoever lost would just start fighting and stuff," Amen said. Ausar claims "it was always Amen who started it," which Amen does not deny.
"He would get so mad," Ausar said. "We'd get home, and he'd still be mad. Our dad would be like, 'Alright, we're going on a spiritual walk.' And it would be just him and my dad, and they'd walk maybe like 4 miles. It's funny."
In one instance, Amen says a scuffle he started resulted in a 14-mile hike.
"I would be so mad, especially if Ausar didn't have to go, and it was just me on the hike," Amen said.
Did Amen's punishments make Ausar feel guilty?
"Hell no," Ausar said. "He was trying to hurt me. I would try to go home, and he just wouldn't let us go home [until he won]. So, it's like, 'Yeah, you don't want to go home? Go do that spiritual walk up the hills.'"
The competitiveness spilled over to high school at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they transferred after leaving California just before starting the eighth grade. Highly regarded for its academics, Pine Crest allowed Amen and Ausar to play varsity basketball as eighth graders.
By the end of their junior season, they had dominated for four years on varsity, leading Pine Crest to a state championship on the way to becoming Co-Players of the Year for Classes 4A-2A. The opportunity to join Atlanta-based Overtime Elite, a new professional basketball league that aimed to provide athletes an alternative path to the NBA, would come once the twins started the AAU season.
They decided to skip their senior year at Pine Crest to commit to OTE, due to the league's 24-hour access to a gym, NBA-level trainers and coaches, and top-notch competition -- not to mention the minimum $100,000 salary.
Amen said he immediately saw improvements in his game.
"But I still feel like when we were in the predraft [process], because we were on OTE, people thought we were not going to be ready for the league because they said we were playing against 15- and 16-year-olds," Amen told ESPN. "Just making up lies for a narrative. We played up our whole lives. And if I'm running [away from competition], I can only run for so long. We've always wanted to be the best. You can't be the best and run."
The 6-foot-7 twins with wingspans of nearly 7 feet played two seasons with OTE before Houston and Detroit drafted Amen and Ausar fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 2023 NBA draft.
"Everybody says they have dogs on their teams," Udoka told ESPN. "Some are pit bulls and some are poodles. We try to go get pit bulls. He's exactly what we want, need, look for, all of the above. We love guys with his length, athleticism and versatility. He fits. Everything he brings to the table, we were thrilled to get him at the spot we got him. He was the guy we fell in love with. He fits everything. He fits the mold of the modern-day NBA, but also of what we're trying to do here."
Bickerstaff felt similarly about what he wanted to bring to Detroit.
"You want guys who are versatile and who can impact the game on both ends of the floor, and you are looking for tough, competitive, fierce dudes that are willing to do whatever it takes and guys who are willing to sacrifice," he told ESPN. "Ausar is all those things. He is what you're looking for."
THE THOMPSON TWINS last saw one another in Miami in March, when the Heat hosted the Pistons and Rockets in back-to-back outings that turned out to be victories for the visiting teams. Armed with versatile two-way skill sets and explosiveness, the Thompsons significantly impacted the outcome of both contests as primary defenders on Tyler Herro.
Amen flashed the most eye-popping display. Miami had defeated Houston in a December matchup marred by six ejections that included Thompson, Herro and Udoka in the final minute. And a sore ankle kept him out of the previous six outings going into that matchup.
Defending Herro primarily, Amen notched seven steals and a block as Houston turned 21 Heat turnovers into 24 points. The Heat guard had fared better two nights prior against the Pistons. But both of Ausar's steals that night came while guarding Herro.
Former Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone described film clips of the Thompson brothers from this season as "incredible."
"You're really seeing both of those guys this year growing into their own, making a name for themselves," Malone said. "Their athleticism, their ability to guard 1 through 5, how strong they are, how fast they are [is impressive]."
Amen might be slightly further along in his development than Ausar, due to the latter missing the last 19 games of his rookie season and the first 18 games of his 2024-25 campaign because of a blood clot issue. Ausar didn't make his season debut until Nov. 25.
"You can go back and almost look at the numbers directly," Bickerstaff told ESPN. "When he came back and was playing minutes, our pace picked up because he'd get rebounds or he runs the floor, pushes and attacks. He's a really good passer and offensive rebounder. Defensively, he's just a menace. He's just all over the floor. He's grown so much. But I think a lot of it just has to do with him being able to play and getting those games under his belt."
Udoka sees similar growth in Amen, who joined the Rockets as a point guard primarily. When Alperen Sengun suffered an injury last season, Amen filled in at power forward, honing his skills as a screener and roller. Amen also spent plenty of time at the dunker spot and moved to point guard for long stints this season when Fred VanVleet missed extended time with injury.
"So, he took all of that and added it to his toolbox," Udoka told ESPN. "He has pretty much played every position, and I think those experiences of different things he hadn't done before is what's really propelled him. He was a point guard and only knew one way to play: get out in transition, make passes, get to the basket. Now the fact that he can roll under and play in the dunker and do all those different things has expanded his game."
From Dec. 23 to the end of the regular season, Amen and Ausar are the only two players in the NBA to log 100 offensive rebounds and 125 combined steals and blocks. While Amen holds a slight edge over Ausar in production on a per-game level, the numbers stack up similarly on a per-36-minutes basis.
According to GeniusIQ, an AI-powered sports analytics site, Amen and Ausar rank in the top five in average jump height (2.38 feet and 2.28 feet) when attempting a layup or dunk this season. Defensively, Ausar ranks fifth in field goal percentage allowed (38.8%) as the contesting defender among players to defend 400-plus shots, according to GeniusIQ. Amen ranks sixth but would be first in the league if the threshold for minimum shot contests was raised to 700 shots.
Ausar finished the regular season ranked No. 3 in defensive estimated plus-minus, trailing Alex Caruso and Kris Dunn, while Amen ranked fifth behind Victor Wembanyama.
"I want to be even more aggressive on-ball, attack more and explore my game while attacking," Ausar told ESPN. "The main thing is just exploring what I'm already great at, which is getting to the rim, finishing or getting into that mid[-range] area."
Amen is also one of two players this season to tally 80 steals and 80 blocks, along with Jaren Jackson Jr. He's the first Rocket since Hakeem Olajuwon (1998-99) to accomplish that feat.
For all the talent and basketball IQ they've shown in their first two seasons in the NBA, the Thompson twins understand they need to improve as shooters to truly thrive in the league. Until that happens, they'll continue to flex the physical tools that got them to the NBA with an emphasis on impacting games in any way possible.
"It's refreshing to see a young player lean into their strengths," Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "The draft process is weird for young players because they get picked apart and told all the things they're not good at. And sometimes their minds shift to trying to prove everyone wrong. A big part of establishing an identity as a young player in the NBA is step one, don't tell on yourself, and [step two], lean into the things that you're good at now to try to impact winning while improving the other parts of your game."
Ahead of their first-round games, the twins will send each other a routine text message: "Go kill."
"I just want to see him do well, honestly," Ausar told ESPN. "I used to get nervous watching his games. But now I don't. He plays like 40 minutes a night. So, it's like I'm just watching it as entertainment now. I expect him to do amazing."
If only one is playing, the other will be watching, knowing exactly what they're feeling in each moment out on the floor. It's not twin telepathy, but rather a matter of familiarity.
"If I'm watching, I can tell what he's feeling just by his face," Amen told ESPN. "It's not a [sixth] sense or anything. He would say the same thing. Like, he'll send a TikTok or we'll send each other a TikTok at the same time, and it's the exact same TikTok. So, there's some stuff like that. But sixth sense? Nah, you've just been around the guy your whole life, you know? Our story is basically the exact same story."
ESPN Research contributed to this report.