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

Nothing wrong with 7 and 7 and good D.

 

Twiggy has struggled on offense the last two games. He sometimes forced shots. Defenders are bodying him on his drives. To his credit, his defense hasn't let up.

 

He looks like fine. It's very early for him. I noticed defenders fouling him a lot though. Both bumping him on drives and on his jumpers.

 

I actually prefer Ingram struggling in the SL...

this way he knows right away he has got work to do.

 

I go on vacation for one weekend and this place turns into those kinds of gifs?... Oi.

As for Brandon I agree with @abeer3 there's clearly a feeling out happening right now. Brandon is painfully thin and he and the Lakers and everyone else in the world can say until they're blue in the face that his thinness won't affect him, but they're wrong. Right now he is having a whale of a time driving. Most of these Summer Leaguers aren't NBA players, but they're allowed to get away with a lot of the contact that Ingram will find in the NBA. He's going to have to learn how/where to pick his spots early in his career. I also agree that he needs to be given more opportunities spacing the floor. D'Angelo is clearly on a mission to prove himself which has been tremendous and fun to watch, but on the way to that Ingram has taken a backseat. For now I don't mind that. Ingram needs time to adjust anyway, but I'd still love it if Ingram wasn't always asked to initiate offense off the dribble. A lot of times he's floating on the perimeter.

However, Ingram does so many other things to help the game even while not being an effective scorer. He plays tremendous man defense with his length. He doesn't have the greatest foot speed, but he doesn't need it when he can challenge shots with that wingspan. I've noticed him get lost off the ball defensively as he tends to ball watch, but that's just something that will happen with younger players.

The talent is absolutely there. There's no question to me this kid can be special. I'm glad we have him over Simmons even if Simmons has incredible upside. The problem with Simmons is that Larry Nance Jr. can defend him effectively right now. Simmons can't shoot at all and he's not as strong as Julius so going to the rim is difficult for him. All you need to do is play off him and force him to shoot over the top of you. He's LeBron without the steroids right now. If he can't bully his way to the rim, he's not doing squat offensively. All those fancy passes would go nowhere if the Lakers were actually playing defense on their own man instead of worrying about Simmons. Everyone play straight up and dare him to score. Ingram can shoot, put the ball on the floor, and is much more attentive defensively. Simmons is a better rebounder, but Ingram is no slouch. I believe wholeheartedly that in 2-3 years Ingram could be the prize of this draft even while Simmons puts up near triple-doubles nightly in Philly losing 50 games every year and driving directly into Okafor and Embiid (when occasionally healthy) in the paint.

 

I definitely can see Ingram coming back next summer and demolishing this league. I could also see him not even doing Summer League if he grows enough during the NBA season. Notice guys like Okafor and Porzingis and Towns aren't doing the Summer League.

 

Oh Russell is plenty cocky. He's doing SL because he needs to validate himself again. After all that went down last year most people don't look at him as a real future star. He needs the SL to establish that he really is a stud. It's a huge ego boost and there's probably a lot on the line financially in endorsements.

 

Okafor did fine in his first season and him not playing is fine with me. I think it was way more important for Russell to get back out there and improve his image. I read an article not too long ago that said Nike specifically put him on the backburner because of his underwhelming performance last season and his social media incident. Even if he didn't lose anything specifically though, he certainly didn't gain anything. It was important for him to go out and establish himself this summer as a real, young asset.

But we're now discussing this in the wrong thread.