When Georgetown officials announced in 2012 that Hollis Thompson was leaving the team to pursue the NBA draft, coach John Thompson III noted that "We fully anticipated he would enter the 2012 draft after this season." It was both a reflection of both Hollis' talent and the fact that he often marched to his own drummer.

A crowd favorite at Los Angeles' Loyola HS, Thompson carried a 18.6 points per game mark and a 4.2 grade point average. He could have waited until his senior season to commit, but chose to commit to Georgetown over Stanford in the fall of 2007, almost two years before college.

"No player rose faster among the national elite during the summer than Thompson, whose ability to shoot and rebound caught everyone's attention," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "He's still growing and still getting better."

As his senior season at Loyola arrived, Thompson pulled another surprise. He graduated high school a semester early, and enrolled at Georgetown in the winter of 2009. In college football terms, it's called a "greenshirt", but in basketball terms it was almost unheard of. Thompson practiced but did not play with the team, and joined the team as a freshman in the 2009-10 season.

His freshman season was a work in progress. The 6-7 forward could be hot one night, cold the next. A 16 point effort versus Lafayette (6-6 from the field, 4-4 from three point range) was a season high, but he also endured an 0-7 night against Villanova and 0-5 versus Cincinnati. He finished the season with a 4.8 points per game average but shot 12 for 17 in his final four games, and a 43.8 percent mark from three point range identified him a key returnee in 2010-11.

Thompson's sophomore season showed continued improvement, but as a complimentary player. The team's leader in three point shooting, he was fourth in team scoring that season. A 26 point effort in the NCAA's versus Ohio was a season's best, but it surprised many when Thompson, with a career average of just 6.6 points in two seasons, announced he would submit his name for the 2011 NBA draft.

"He's easily bored. He wants to challenge himself," said his former high school coach, Jamal Adams. "He's a really bright kid doing his own thing."

Thompson withdrew his name but a return to the NBA draft wasn't out of the question in 2012.

Though he never led the team in scoring in 2011-12, Hollis Thompson enjoyed a strong junior season, scoring in double figures in 25 of 33 games with a career best 45.8 percent from three point range. Saving his best efforts for the big games, he scored 23 in a second round NCAA game versus North Carolina State, which turned out to be his final collegiate game.

Though he saw his potential, others did not. Thompson went undrafted in the 2012 NBA draft and spent what would have been his senior season playing for the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA development league. In 2013, he was picked up as a low-risk free agent by the Philadelphia 76ers, in the midst of a 19-win season that began the phrase: "Trust The Process". Thompson became a fan favorite for doing just that.

"Despite appearing to lack consistency, the numbers couldn't be lying -- year after year, Thompson fell into the category of elite three-point shooters," wrote columnist Jake Pavorsky. "In the same vein that people put their blind faith in Sam Hinkie to complete The Process, Thompson deserved a similar level of respect. Even as your eyes deceived you, Thompson was always going to hover around the 40 percent mark."

"As the team shuffled through the Chris Johnsons, Elliot Williamses, and James Nunnallys of the basketball underworld, Thompson and his stroke were a constant. Through the hardest of times and the worst of storms, Thompson became a bastion of hope for The Process when there wasn't much else to offer. He helped convince people that maybe, just maybe, a rose could blossom from the soiled land that was the Sixers roster."

In four seasons, Hollis Thompson rose to the sixth ranked all-time three point scorer in team history. He was waived in 2017.