Only one of three ex-Sacramento Kings players shined in season debut with new team

This offseason, the Sacramento Kings parted ways with three of their top 10 players in minutes played from the 2023-24 season. Now, Harrison Barnes (San Antonio Spurs), Davion Mitchell (Toronto Raptors), and Chris Duarte (Chicago Bulls) all play for new teams. And with the regular season now officially underway, all of them have made their season debuts. And while it is only one game, it looks like there is only one of them that we should really miss.

Chris Duarte

We'll start with Duarte since he had the least eventful debut. As it stands, Duarte is clearly not a part of the Bulls' competitive rotation, as the fourth-year wing did not check into the game until there was 1:46 left in the fourth quarter, and the Bulls were down 123-108 to the New Orleans Pelicans. When he got in, Duarte took and made just one shot (a meaningless 3-pointer with 28 seconds remaining in the game).

Davion Mitchell

Unlike Duarte, Mitchell does have a pretty significant role with his new team. It seems like head coach Darko Rajaković wants Mitchell to be his number one guy off the bench, as the fourth-year guard led the team in minutes among bench players (24:33). Mitchell didn't make the most of his chance, though. Yes, Mitchell had eight points, three assists, and two steals, but he also had five turnovers and only shot 40% from the floor.

Harrison Barnes

Barnes is the only one of these three who has a starting role on his new team (to be fair, he was also the only one who started on the Kings). In his debut for the Spurs, Barnes played just over 29 minutes (29:11) and posted a stat line of 17 points, four rebounds, two assists, and one steal while shooting 7-for-10 from the floor and 2-for-5 from three. He ended the game tied with the prodigious Victor Wembanyama for second on the team in points.

Putting It All Together

One theme that we've always tried to hammer home on this website is that there is a lot more nuance in a game than just points, rebounds, and assists. To truly paint an accurate picture of what is going on, you need to combine statistical analysis with a deep film study.

Unfortunately, a deep dive into the tape of these three is outside the scope of this article. So, instead, let's look at a metric that tries to capture a player's entire performance: single game Estimated Plus-Minus (EPM). This is just a one game version of the Dunks & Threes one-number metric we cite here all the time.

Anyway, based on that metric, Barnes was the only one who posted an average/above-average performance, placing in the 52nd percentile among all players in single-game EPM. Meanwhile, Duarte and Mitchell hung out near the bottom quartile, placing in the 32nd and 30th percentile in this category, respectively.