A REST endpoint can be analogous to a specific method in code. just as much as a GraphQL field.
What people are excited about is that the frontend can request all the data it needs at once and the backend can efficiently serve it. Something not possible with REST without reimplementing something similar to GraphQL.
It's definitely possible, just not without tight coordination between frontend and backend. When your development teams are broken into silos with strong separation, this isn't feasible and GraphQL starts to make some sense. Otherwise, you just create an ad hoc endpoint that serves the exact data you need and call it a day.
