So, if we think in terms of Graham as replacing Lonzo I thought it would be useful to look at their 3 point shooting numbers. Mainly I broke down Lonzo's percentage into wins and losses. The monthly averages are easy to find as well.
Lonzo shot 37.8% on 8.3 attempts per game last season.
Graham shot 37.5% on 8.5 attempts per game.
The casual glance at this would make you think its a lateral move. They are the same player.
I contend they are vastly different and that Graham is a much better shooter than Lonzo.
I spent more time breaking down Lonzo's averages in wins and losses because I felt like the team struggled when he had off shooting nights. After looking into it he did indeed have many off nights that coincided with losses.
Consistency is so important in basketball. Streaky shooters, unless they are superior in other areas, should be relegated to the bench or even a 6th man roll at best. If they are off that night they wont get as many minutes. Its more difficult to limit a starters minutes when he is having an off night because of potential confidence issues. Lonzo does not appear to be a confident shooter.
By month:
_______Lonzo_______Graham
Dec____28.6_________33.3
Jan____33.8__________35
Feb____45.9_________34.3
Mar____35.5_________45.5
Apr_____34_________36.4
May____40__________38.6
Important context also comes from watching the highlight videos in that Graham takes a much wider range of shots with much higher difficulty while Lonzo is primarily a catch and shoot guy. If Graham only took the same shots as Lonzo last year I think he would shoot a much better percentage. He will likely have many opportunities at wide open shots with Zion and BI on the court.
Now the more telling split to me is shooting in wins and losses.
Lonzo shot 44.2% in wins and 33.2% in losses with 3 games where he shot 0/8, 0/7, and 0/6 with one win and two losses. The 0/8 was a win over OKC.
Graham shot 38% in wins and 37.2% in losses. He had one 0/5 game in a win against MIN.
This tells me Lonzo's scoring was much more important for team success than Graham's was. What I mean by this is that when Lonzo struggled to score the team struggled to win. Graham was just consistent throughout and the bulk of his teams losses were likely due to other factors outside of his scoring.
Will this move result in more wins by the team? I have no idea. But I am a huge fan of consistent play night in and night out. I think Graham will flourish playing with arguably the two best players he has ever been on the floor with. Dae pointed out that he wasn't much different in terms of defensive impact compared to Lonzo. If that holds true I think we are in for a fun ride this year.
Plus Jonas is a fairly large offensive upgrade over Adams without any dropoff defensively.
And losing Bledsoe is addition by subtraction. NAW should have gotten all of his minutes after he showed he was clearly uninterested.
Add a Buddy Hield to the mix and I think this offseason looks very good. Right now I am cautiously optimistic.
Finally, we took a few swings at big time game changers and struck out. Now we retain the flexibility to add an impact player through trade. I have my eye on a Lillard or Beal. (I can dream right?)