Class is in Session: Looking at how the rookies performed in their debuts

I know these debuts tell us almost nothing, but hey, YOLO, my friends. Let’s take a look at how your favorite rookie performed in their opening game of the 2015-16 NBA season.

The Top Ten

Karl-Anthony Towns

Ricky Rubio kind of stole the show but this was a damn good debut for the top overall pick. He shot at a 60 percent clip, logged a healthy chunk of minutes and his team won. We can expect to see more blocks — and step backs? — in the future, but KAT certainly didn’t disappoint.

D’Angelo Russell

This was a night to forget for the passing maestro. Russell sat the entire fourth quarter and watched Kobe Bryant jack up 24 shots, including 13 threes. He’ll figure it out and Kobe can’t play forever, can he?

Jahlil Okafor

Young boy goes hard in the paint. Maybe a little too hard as evidenced by the turnovers, but overall he was as advertised: a polished force in the post.

Kristaps Porzingis

The Latvian is ahead of schedule in New York. He rather unexpectedly earned a starting spot and ended up scoring more points than Melo in his coming out party. Porzingis has to get a lot stronger but he’s really tall, mobile and his 12 free throw attempts are an indication of how aggressive he was offensively.

Mario Hezonja

Hezonja started his career by confidently nailing a 3-pointer about 15 seconds after stepping onto the court. Is anyone surprised? How do you say swag in Croatian? He didn’t start the game, but he finished it.

Willy Cauley-Stein

There’s not much to say here. There’s some debut as to whether he didn’t get minutes because of an ankle injury or because George Karl was teaching him a lesson for not practicing when he thought he should have. Not great to start your NBA career in the dog house, though.

Emmanuel Mudiay

This dude is driving the bus from Day One. He turned the ball over a ton but he led his team to a 20-point win over Houston, showing a lot of competitiveness and creativity in the process. He’s a definite Rookie of the Year frontrunner.

Stanley Johnson (2 games)

Johnson kicked ass in the preseason. He hasn’t been quite so torrid in his young career (30 percent shooting through two games) but Stan Van Gundy trusts him and he’s one of the grittiest players in the class.

Frank Kaminsky

Frank the Tank is always going to be fighting the fact that Charlotte turned down a heap of draft picks in order to draft him. There are brighter days ahead, but Kaminsky is adjusting to the pace of the NBA game.

Justise Winslow

In typical Winslow fashion, he did a little bit of everything, including this:

That’s what you get for passing on him, Charlotte.

Other Notable Debuts

Devin Booker

The youngest player in the league had a really nice debut. Last night didn’t go well at all for the Suns and Jeff Hornacek is clearly still tinkering with the lineups but Booker appears to have carved a place in the rotation.

Jerian Grant

That Tim Hardaway trade sure is looking good.