Assessing DeRozan's almost-as-announced debut with the Sacramento Kings

On Thursday, the Sacramento Kings kicked off their 2024-25 regular season against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The game was also DeMar DeRozan's – the team's key offseason addition – his first game as a member of the Kings.

How has the six-time All-Star fared in his new home? In this post, we provide an in-depth look at DeRozan's debut and an assessment of his overall performance.

At first glance, DeRozan has done everything we expect of him. He scored a lot of points (26), got a lot of free throw opportunities (14) and played a lot of minutes (42 minutes and 32 seconds).

The free throws were particularly important as the Kings ranked 21st in free throw attempts per game last year and 26th in the ratio of free throw attempts to field goal attempts. Tonight, the Kings had twice as many free throw attempts as the Timberwolves (35 to 17), who ranked eighth in free throw attempts last year.

Although it looked like a normal DeRozan performance, it was pretty up and down. DeRozan started the game slow, scoring just four points on 1-for-4 shooting from the floor. He also had a turnover due to a mistake with teammate Keon Ellis (a highly underrated role player). However, DeRozan bounced back in the middle quarter, scoring 14 points while making 50% of field goals during that time.

Then came the last frame. Over the years, DeRozan has built a reputation as a killer closer. However, that version of him was nowhere to be seen. DeRozan scored eight points, but he did so on 2 of 7 shooting (28.6%). Worst of all, the Kings desperately needed that version of DeRozan tonight as the team ended up losing to the Timberwolves 117-115. If DeRozan had just been a little more efficient in the fourth quarter, the Kings would be coming away with a 1-0 score tonight instead of a 0-1 score.

Overall, DeRozan's debut was like most first games with a new team. There were moments of genius and moments of despair. In the long term, if DeRozan can play for 48 minutes like he did in the second and third quarters, the Kings will be in business. But tonight that just didn't happen.

Degree: C+