The Kings didn’t make many changes last offseason, but one move they did make was throw a couple future second-round picks at the Indiana Pacers to acquire former lottery pick Chris Duarte, entering his 3rd year in the NBA. Duarte was coming off a down year, with injuries and more competition leading to fewer opportunities, but the hope was that he could regain some of his rookie year form where he averaged 13.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.1 assists while shooting 36.9% from three and be a valuable depth piece. Unfortunately for both Duarte and the Kings, he never seemed to find a rhythm all season.
Duarte finished the 2023-24 campaign averaging career lows across the board: 3.9 points, 1.8 rebounds, 0.7 assists and just 38.1% from the field. His 3P% was up from his sophomore year but at just 34.6% he wasn’t reliable enough as a threat. Defense was supposed to be his calling card, and while he showed good effort on that end, he was often asked to guard bigger wings and struggled to do so. The Kings were actually 1.5 points better defensively when Duarte was off the floor, not a good sign for a player meant to help on that end.
Offensively, Duarte was a mess. Despite 47.1% of his total field goal attempts being catch and shoot, he made only 31.3% of those attempts (32.6% on catch and shoot threes). He wasn’t able to punish defenses that would leave him wide open: Per NBA.com, 32.4% of his three point attempts were designated as wide-open, with no defender being within 6 feet of him, and he made just 33.8% of those shots. He also wasn’t a particular threat to drive (he shot just 15.2% of his attempts at the rim, down from both his previous years) or pass (his 7.8% assist rate was on par with JaVale McGee’s assist rate).
It’s not as if Duarte didn’t get an opportunity to prove himself either. Coach Brown opted to start Duarte at two points in the season when Kevin Huerter was struggling, but Duarte didn’t manage to make a particularly big impact at any point. Eventually he fell in favor of Keon Ellis, who was able to make an impact on both ends of the court, and wasn’t able to really get on the court much despite the Kings missing both Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk for the end of the season.
Duarte is also different from most players on rookie deals in that he’s not exactly young. Despite finishing just his 3rd year in the league, Duarte is actually almost 200 days older than De’Aaron Fox. He was drafted so highly in order to be an instant impact player, and for at least a little bit in his rookie year he was. But he has struggled to find himself since then, and doesn’t have the luxury of time to figure things out, especially on a Kings team desperate to win in a tough Western Conference.
For the Kings, rolling the dice on Duarte was a fairly low risk move, but it has failed to pan out. They’re now on the hook for his final year, and it seems unlikely that Duarte is going to be able to turn it around and suddenly become an impact player at 27 years old.
