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

we're in circles now. i refer to my previous statement.

as for kuz: it's immaterial. he wasn't going to be substituted for ingram in the trade. griffin loved ingram. he said so on many occasions when he was an analyst. it was clear he was going to be part of the deal. kuz could suck or be great and it has no bearing on whether trading for AD was a good idea. it was a good idea. AD tearing a labrum has no bearing on whether trading for him was a good idea, either. i'm being very consistent here.

 

I haven't questioned whether you are being consistent.
I've only said we don't yet know the result.
As a Lakers fan I'm hoping you are right and I am wrong.
But today isn't a good day for Lakers fans.
What we can do is treat him well and build loyalty so he signs with us and not do what the Spurs did with Kawhi.

 

being in 1st place with the league's best defense and two of the very best players in the league constitutes a "bad day"? because one guy may have an injury that may or may not create problems for winning a title this season?

what is being in last place and having your young putative cornerstones actually missing games due to mysterious (and non-mysterious but not at all promising) injuries, then? hell?

 

I earlier read on his forum that AD had a labrum injury.
I went to look at Twitter and Google and I don't see this story.
So my comment was in reference to that.
If there's no injury then it wasn't a bad day.
If there is then it is a bad day.
How is this controversial?

 

i guess i was reading it in the context of this thread and not in general?

 

Yes and our main point of contention is that you believe the trade was good without question.
I believe that we won't know for a few years.
If Ingram and Ball don't improve or remain chronically injured and our draft picks amount to nothing then you are right.
If AD leaves or is unable to lead us to a title during LBJ's window, or if he's unable to attract a complimentary piece after LBJ leaves then perhaps I'm right.
Right now, if we continue winning at a 78% clip and have a competitive run at the title... I have to say the trade looks pretty good.
If we fall to a more modest 50-32 record pace and lose in the early rounds, then I'm not so sure.
If the Pels rally under Zion and make the playoffs, then I'm also not so sure.
As a fan, I'm only hoping for the best and I hope AD and the team succeeds.
You can be critical of front office moves yet still be a true fan.

 

@Sentient Meat .... you keep circling back factoring in hindsight and also hedging your observations on what happens in the future. The point is that at that point in time the trade was unquestionably the right thing to do and Ingram was going to be in it. Period. Why is this so hard to admit?

 

If you base your conclusion on what happens to the organization as of November 12th, 2019... yes it's the right thing.
If you base it on what happens in three years it might be a different answer.
I'm sure Kennedy and Johnson thought Vietnam was the right thing at the time.
In hindsight it seems less certain.
Why is it hard to understand that one can't judge certain things that might have a short term gain only to have a long term loss?
If we trade for Yao Ming in 2009 it would seem good, but by 2011 it wouldn't seem good.
I'm not trying to be obnoxious, all I'm saying is that we won't know for awhile what was wise.

 

yeah, i give up.

if if if.

btw, what in the world would zion becoming a world beater and leading the pelicans to the promised land have to do with the AD trade? seriously.

if we subscribe to sentient's model of decision evaluation, we probably shouldn't bother discussing decisions until the act of discussion is useless (i.e., all possible facts are in).

no one said ball and ingram would never get better when they were traded. nobody. not the lakers FO, not the fans, nobody.

why is 50 wins bad but 60 wins good? what happens if they win 54 games? what if lonzo ball slaps the pelicans' owner, prompting him to sell the franchise to james dolan? would this make it the biggest heist in the history of trades??!!!

i'm critical of TONS of laker front office moves. even some that worked out...by dumb luck or accident. what you're saying is that dumb luck and accident play into evaluating a choice. that's not logical.

edit: example: the russell trade was bad and stupid. it worked out fine. we're better now and got lebron. but moving a guy who had played like he had for cap space and a late pick was a bad decision. moving him for an allstar would have been great. no matter what happened later.

double edit:

consider a non-basketball example: i've decided not to kill innocent newborn children. just something that i think is wrong. some of those children that i don't kill will grow up and do awful things, like...kill people. if and when they do, did my decision not to kill that particular baby become a bad one? no. it was a great decision, and what followed it doesn't change that fact.

 

The reason I brought up Zion is because we all viewed Ingram as at best a second or third option based on his first three years, so his team's performance would mostly be relevant depending on whether Zion could perform as a first option and whether Ingram would be able to fulfill a second option's duties.
Even with his 27 PPG pace, he hasn't convinced me he's a first option, but he's solidified my view of him as a decent second option.

Right now the team is playing at a 64 win pace... which is excellent... if we can maintain that pace, I can find little fault with the pairing of LBJ/AD in spite of its flaws as that by almost all measures is a successful team.

On the other hand, if it falls to a more modest 50 game pace, a lot of teams fall under that umbrella including many unexceptional teams like the Rockets and Clippers teams of recent years. Obviously this doesn't mean you can't be great at 50 wins but generally that's the equivalent of a B student while 60 plus would be the score of an A student.

I haven't said that you are wrong, I've only said your declaration of the trade as a success is premature. So many things have to fall into place to make it an unmitigated success. AD has to re sign here... LBJ has to stay healthy... a third scoring option needs to emerge... and team chemistry needs to stay harmonious. We need to make the playoffs, we need to compete well... and the groundwork needs to be set for a sustainable future team.

If all those things happen, then yes I will say I was wrong to worry and that this trade is a success, even if Ingram becomes a 25 PPG all star.

If some of them don't then maybe I won't feel the same way.

I think that's reasonable.

 

I think that's incredibly unreasonable. So many things have to line up for it to be a success, and if they don't all line up it's a failure? Talk about setting a ridiculous goalpost.

The groundwork for our future team with the kids wasn't moving the needle in the wins column. I was a big fan of all of them, but A LOT more needed to line up for the team to be successful as constructed. Zo has to become an all star. Ingram has to become an all star. The #4 pick needs to become a borderline all star. Even if all of that happens, there are still several teams that would likely take care of that team in a playoff series. We have 2 superstars and the best record in the West through 9 games. I'd say the scaled are heavily tilted in favor of trading whatever we had to for AD.

 

I'm on the side of judging a trade in a vacuum based on the information you have at that moment, so I'd say it can't be a failure. That might sound like a ridiculous goalpost itself, but there’s too many variables to place success/failure on one guy. Technically as a fan I could say that anything besides a championship is a failure, but I view the trade as a no-brainer every time and just the act of getting AD is a success.

 

This where I have trouble with some people's takes.
Just because you get one or two superstars doesn't mean you succeeded.
If you could have engineered scenarios where you signed two of KD/Kawhi/PG/Kyrie/LBJ/AD/Butler etc and one allowed you to keep your picks and some youngsters and another scenario has you with no youngsters and half your draft picks it seems clear to me that scenario one was more desirable than scenario two.
It boggles my mind when people say things like, well we had do what we had to do to get two superstars.
That isn't true.
The Clippers were able to do so and keep some young pieces.
So were the Nets.
It's lazy to say oh we got AD so we won.
That's not necessarily the case... I can list a hundred scenarios that would have us with two elite agents and still kept some youngsters and picks.
So yeah, since we went the all or nothing win now route... I'd say we should at least win one title or the outcome isn't great.

 

i've already said it many times: none.

if lebron gets hurt, then the trade was bad? really? that's the logic. aren't you a philosopher, rodg?

anyway, if you forced me to play the game, it would have to be based on things that people predicted would happen at the time of the trade that came to fruition. but ingram scoring a bunch of points for a bad team certainly isn't on the list.

 

bkn and the clips did it because they weren't clearing space for a third max, which a) was not a great plan and b) had nothing to do with the AD trade.

we basically paid less for AD than the clips did for PG.

 

The Clips overpaid for PG to land Kawhi.
Now that is something those six pieces would have justified.

 

they traded for george and signed leonard. i'm sure we'd have done similar stuff given similar options. we actually got a better player for less, though. but it was a bad trade unless we win, what is it, 57 games? i can't keep track of the posts.

 

Oh lord we have two genius armchair GMs that could run the team better. Even @vasashi17 doesn't claim that kind of prowess. Hyperbole much? LMAO.