A lot of what Devonte’ Graham is doing this season was totally unexpected coming in, but here’s another one where, if you told me this was happening while Graham was sucking it up last season, I would’ve laughed in your face. Or if, we were not conversing in person but rather over the internet, I would’ve thrown in a LOL and meant it literally: Graham is leading the league in minutes played.
This isn’t as outrageous as it seems at first glance, but it’s still pretty outrageous. The Hornets have played the most games already this season, at 42, and Graham hasn’t missed a single one. He’s playing a lot of minutes per contest, but he’s not even (“not even”, as if he should obviously be) top 10 in that category. Other players might catch up to him (probably James Harden at least) once the schedule evens out.
But the main reason that he’s the most heavily-ridden player in the NBA is because he’s a frickin’ good player and obviously you want to play your frickin’ good players as much as possible, especially when pretty much everyone else on your roster is a frickin’ bad player.