I think the more important aspect is blocks/foul ratio--normally when you hack at such a high level that's accompanied by some blocks, but JT was averaging less than 1 last year through 82 games. If you get big minutes in your rookie season and you put up that sort of ratio, that ratio doesn't really change significantly for the rest of your career. Cut through the foul clutter and it you can see that he's an NBA-caliber rebounder, at the minimum, but that also reveals his defense--still needs major work, both in terms of individual and team defense. His problem is really at two levels--he needs to reign himself in and not operate as a hustle type all the time, thus reducing the fouls, and if he even rectifies that problem he'll need to start showing real fundamentals on defense, which might be an even longer road to reach. He technically has the mobility and good enough athleticism to compete defensively, but it's all mentality.
This high energy play extends to the rest of his game--he gets tons of setup passes and actively looks to dunk, and his pursuit of offensive rebounds leads to tons of tip-ins. But normally, if you dunk that much, you normally finish around the basket at 60%--Thompson hit only about 54%, which really shows how much his dunking is masking his true finishing ability. He's only a poor to average finisher (46%) around the basket taking away his dunks and tip-ins, gets quite a few of his inside shots blocked, and also shows surprisingly poor touch in tip-ins; his dunking indicates that he has some level of athleticism, but his other finishing abilities seem to indicate a lack of length/playing too fast for his own good. What's truly amazing is how often he got his mid-rangers blocked--he was the league leader in 2-pt jumpers blocked last year. He's actually a very good 15-20 foot mid-range jump shooter, so imagine if he actually slowed down the game in his mind he could be far better in this area.
Thompson's actually an interesting player--there's masking involved on both ends of the court. Masking bad defense through foul trouble. Masking real finishing ability through the amount of dunks he accumulates. But even through that masking, he's capable--as noted, he's a NBA rebounder, he's probably one of the better players in the league in accumulating dunks and tip-ins through his hustle play, he's got a pretty nice long mid-range jumper, and from what I've seen this year, he's actually showed some passing ability (would be a nice little wrinkle to his game too). It seems like so much is based upon his hustle play on both ends of the court that I can't really see him deviating from it too much, however--it's almost like a bad habit in that it sort of lowers a considerable upside because he's not going to play enough to warrant star minutes at his fouling rate, and he's largely confining himself to bouncing around the basket. Based on the hurdles he has to overcome if he wants to be that level of special, I can't see him being anything more than a fine 4th/5th man hustle player on a good team. It would really take radical changes of certain elements of his game to become more than that.
