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WHAT WE EXPECT: Could Treveon Graham be more than the ‘15th man’

NBA: Charlotte Hornets at Phoenix Suns Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Treveon Graham fills out Brooklyn’s roster —at least for now— but that doesn’t mean the 6’5” all-purpose forward will wind up as the team’s 15th man. The Nets and Graham reached an agreement two days ago, as Shams Charania reported.

Graham, 24, signed a multi-year deal to join the team, with the first season being fully guaranteed. No word if the deal is a two-year deal like Shabazz Napier got or a longer term deal like Spencer Dinwiddie signed two years ago.

Either way, he’ll join roster that’s crowded with similar-sized players, at least in terms of height. There’s Allen Crabbe, Joe Harris, Caris LeVert, Dzanan Musa and Rodions Kurucs, not to mention D’Angelo Russell and Dinwiddie.

So it’s a steep hill to climb for Graham, who will turn 25 in October, but he has advantages. He’s 235 pounds, has a 6’11” wingspan and can play the 4 as well as the 3. He spent 99 minutes at the power forward last season with the Hornets. He’s a career 43.8 percent 3-point shooter during his two seasons with Charlotte. It may be based on a small sample (49-of-112) but that percentage is elite. He’s improved his shot as well. In 2015-16, playing for the Idaho Stampede of the D-League, he shot only 33 percent. During his four years at VCU, he shot 35 percent.

Undrafted after winning the 2015 Atlantic-10 MVP his senior year, Graham is also noted for his defense, writes fellow SB Nation Team Site At The Hive, who covers the Hornets.

So at least Graham isn’t one of those guys where people just say he’s good at defense as an empty throwaway compliment. Oh, and did we mention he can shoot?

Unlike previous additions, Graham doesn’t have an extensive highlight reel of top plays to surf through. In fact, there isn’t much of anything worth noting yet.

There is this one clip of a 14-point performance he put together at the expense of the Milwaukee Bucks this past December. It included a career-best 4-of-5 display from deep and was one point shy of his season-high of 15 points set in February in Phoenix.

What the performance even more special is that it came after three straight DNP’s, two of which where he was inactive. As we know, the Nets love the three-ball. They hit 12.8 per game last season, second to only the Houston Rockets. Same goes for their three-point frequency — 43.6% of their plays resulted in an attempt from long range.

All of Graham’s makes in the 14-point showing are from the corner, a shot the Nets practice often – Kenny Atkinson is a big fan. But his shot chart shows he can hit from elsewhere. He hit 53.8 percent (14-of-26) from the right wing for example.

Could he play the 4 for the Nets? He plays good D, can hit the three and he proved a reliable bench player for Charlotte averaging 16.7 minutes a game. But his rebounding is limited. As At The Hive’s Evan Dyal wrote, “Graham only rebounds 10.4 percent of the opponents misses, which is well below average.” One reason, Dyal noted, was that he is often the guy assigned to do the dirty work, boxing out, often putting him too far away from the rim to get boards.

It’s all about three point shooting. Here’s a little more scoring variety. He can run the floor, finish a bit, etc.

He’s conservative in his shot selection and in a number of other aspects of his game. As of now, we’d have to assume his role will be undefined heading into training camp, but so was Spencer Dinwiddie’s prior to last season.

He has two very different connections to Nets teammates. Dinwiddie noted the two have played together...

As it turned out, it was a very Nets-heavy roster. In addition to Graham and Dinwiddie, the team included Sean Kilpatrick, Cory Jefferson and Yogi Ferrell, all of whom wound up in Nets uniforms.

Another Net with a connection to Graham is Joe Harris. As a junior at VCU, Graham faced off against Joe Harris, then an All-American candidate at big brother University of Virginia. The game ended with a buzzer beater from Graham, who finished with a game-high 22 points.

Should make for an interesting training camp reunion.