The debut came after the Pole was in June selected as the number nine pick at the NBA draft by the Spurs.
Sochan on Sunday spent 17 minutes on the floor during the game at the Toyota Center in Houston, according to Poland's Rzeczpospolita daily.
"His mostly defensive play was impressive enough to make him an important future member of the team," the newspaper reported.
It said the Spurs' veteran coach Gregg Popovich "has promised to put rookies into the middle of a fire to see which one will survive."
Sochan moved to the National Basketball League from Baylor University in Texas.
The 19-year-old became the highest-picked Polish player in NBA history, surpassing Maciej Lampe (No. 30), Szymon Szewczyk (No. 35), and Marcin Gortat (No. 57), according to Polish state news agency PAP.
Szewczyk never got to play in the NBA, while the league's first Pole, Cezary Trybański, featured in the NBA without being picked in the draft.
Sochan, who has described his move to the five-time NBA champions as “really exciting,” is set to earn some USD 4 million in his first season with the San Antonio Spurs, according to media reports.
The NBA’s official website has described the Polish rookie as a “versatile forward who fills in a lot of blanks on both ends of the floor guarding multiple positions, making hustle plays, passing the ball with nice vision, and scoring opportunistically while steadily improving as a jump shooter.”
Sochan is the son of the Polish former basketball player Aneta Sochan and an American father.
(di/gs)
Source: Rzeczpospolita