Devonte’ Graham might have gotten the double-double, and the Hornets might have gotten the win, but Graham unfortunately entered distinguished territory (and not the good kind of distinguished) by requiring 23 shots to score eighteen points in this game. Scoring fewer points than you take shots is bad enough. To have that difference be so pronounced, and to take so many attempts, is not good at all.
Out of 73 games this season were a player took 23 or more shots, eighteen is the lowest that any of them scored. Bradley Beal scored nineteen on 25 shots, and Nikola Jokic scored twenty on 23 shots. In contrast, LaMarcus Aldridge had a game where he scored 39 on 23 shots. That’s more than twice as many points as Graham scored!
I don’t mean to rag too hard on Graham. He’s a young player on a bad team, so these kinds of games will happen from time to time. And, in fairness to him, he did notch ten assists, so it’s not like was being a complete me-first chucker. Plus, we’ve only played like a seventh of the season, so there will probably be some poor guy who scores something like twelve points on 23 shots. For example, C.J. McCollum had 13 points on 25 shots last season. Given how booty McCollum has been playing, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that happened again and relieved Graham of his unfortunate record.