We’re pretty far into the season already! How time flies. Just a few weeks ago, I was thinking this about the Hornets:
“They’re totally building around Miles Bridges, aren’t they?”
But that was a few weeks ago, and I’m not thinking such things anymore. In my defense, it totally seemed, before the games actually started, that Bridges was the only young player they had with any sort of upside, and that he could be totally like a Blake Griffin 0.3 or maybe even 0.4.
Bridges is still putting up nice stats, but I’ve changed my mind about who the Hornets are gonna build around, and it’s totally gonna be Devonte’ Graham. 100 percent. If things turn out right, it can be like a Chris Paul/Blake Griffin in LA kind of deal, except this Chris Paul is one of the league’s best three-point shooter and the Blake Griffin is fool’s gold.
On-off stats don’t show the whole picture, but they show a lot of it, and the difference between Graham and Bridges is staggering. Like, if I was standing up while finding out about it, I’d literally start stumbling into walls and stuff. According to basketball-reference, the Hornets are 18 points per 100 possessions better with Graham on the court versus off. Bridges? 14 points WORSE, the worst mark of any of their major players.
That will change a bit with this performance, hopefully, unless this career-high 31 point performance is the emptiest stats this side of Kevin Love in Minnesota.