That was not the kind of start you wanted to see on opening night from Deandre Ayton. In his debut against the Golden State Warriors, Ayton looked passive, disconnected, and exactly like the player fans hoped he would not be.
His final stats read: 10 points, six rebounds, zero assists, but the major problem was not the box score. It was the body language.
“This was not a Deandre Ayton performance that gives you a whole lot of encouragement that he’s going to figure it out and be that center that they need,” Bryce Simon said on the Game Theory Podcast.