Brandon Ingram Discussion: He Is Who We Thought He Could Be

This is the mentality that we need to stop having going forward.

We had chances to get all stars / superstars for our MEDIOCRE at best players and we balk at it by saying stuff like this?

Sorry but outside of Kuz and Lonzo, I'm willing to trade ANYBODY on this roster right now for a guy like Cousins.

 

Huh? Me not liking Cousins is not a mentality. I think he's a loser and a head case. I'd rather have Lopez at that position. What, am I not allowed to have an opinion?

 

sure you are but this team isnt exactly full of winners lol...just like the lebron hater who'd rather continue this losing path over having him sign here, as if thats even a reality. just a bunch of fantasy bs magic and the media keep shovelling down our throats. end of the day nobody gona sign here to play with these losers and we'll end up over paying lopez and kcp to stay lol

 

Do that in a heartbeat.

We can’t be picky anymore.

 

Bringing in Cousins takes us nowhere. He's won 24, 22, 28, 28, 29, 33, and 32 games with Kings. And now he's made the Pelicans worse.

Someone please tell me how he improves our team.

 

he looked like a** all pre-season

 

You're absolutely right. It's only been one game.

Small nitpick, if I may: At what point do we stop with the "He's only X years old!"? He's a second year NBA player, there needs to be even incremental growth shown soon (which he still has time, because as you said, it's been one game).

If we're being petty and literal, Jaylen Brown is a 20 year old, 2nd year, high draft pick. He has looked leaps better from his rookie year so far playing minutes on a competitive team and had a huge showing in a big spot vs the 3 time defending ECF champs on the road in primetime.

I'm not saying "LOLZ ING-BUM IS A BUST!!!1!", but...we need to be a little less coddling about him, because if he isn't the player we all think he is, we better figure it out before the rest of the league does.

 

do you really need to give player time to hit mid-range shots?

 

Randle was one of our 2 best players throughout preseason. Ingram has been garbage, yet he gets the benefit of the doubt. I still hope Ingram figures it out, but Randle and Kuzma are our best forwards right now and it's not even close. Randle has shown more progress than Ingram, but it's disregarded because Ingram is a project. Again, THIS is why many of us "stick up" for Randle. It really just don't make any logical sense at this point for people to be "done" with the one guy has actually shown he can translate some of the things he worked on to the real game.

 

Here's the problem: when he was drafted (and all last year) he was a project. Patience was the point.

But now, he's a "potential 20ppg player this year" and "literally untouchable" according to the President of Basketball Ops/Greatest Player in the History of the Franchise/Possibly Most Important Sports Figure in the History of LA.

That changes expectations. It's not fair to Ingram, to be sure. It's not fair to you making your point on here, because those weren't your words and I don't necessarily think you're wrong. But it changes expectations regardless.

You cannot have that put on you and come out in front of a (pretty spoiled) fanbase mired in a basketball situation that resembles the 7th ring of hell and put up another season of 9.6ppg on bad %s, while looking lost on the court half the time. You just can't. Once again, not fair to him, but most things in life aren't. You want 3-4 more years of patience, there are 28 other teams that don't have 16 banners hanging up that'll have all the patience in the world.

And let's get this out of the way early, there is a chance we are right back here a year from now all having this same conversation about Lonzo.

 

Throughout summer league, preseason, and the first game yesterday, Ingram has been playing the same way, and it is very ineffective against NBA competition. He did well in that 1 game in summer league because the competition sucked. Against NBA players, his drive is easily contained and he couldn't even score 1 on 1. His game in the current system seems forced, like he has to be the go-to scorer, and I think that hasn't worked out well.

Ingram at the end of last year was a pleasure to watch, I hope he slows down and let the game come to him, instead of zeroing on driving into traffic everytime.

 

We need to be patient. I'm not ready to give up on him.

 

I don't think anyone is fully giving up on him, but there is a clear lack of anything between the ears with him, Luke and Magic in regards to his play. He cannot ISO effectively and his pull up mid-range game off the ISO is not good, nor is his driving ability off straight ISO. What does he, Luke and Magic do, they ISO him and play to every one of his weaknesses without hesitation to think, maybe this isn't working. Nope full steam ahead on the inefficient train because 20ppg.

He needs to spot up to get a couple open looks at 3s (Hey we just drafted a guy that is pretty good at finding the open man), run him off off-ball screens and motion to take advantage of easy looks and mismatches and mix in a few pick n rolls that gets a smaller man on him so he can take advantage.....

That would require coaching and recognition of player strengths, which we clearly lack at the head coaching position and BI doesn't have the intelligence to figure this out yet. So we are stuck with brick city.