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

I've been saying Ingram is the one that's going to lose minutes to Kuzma, not Randle, for a while now. We need Randle's interior D and rebounding next to Lopez. Kuzma does everything better than Ingram as a SF.

 

Randles interior D?

 

It is way too early to give up on Ingram, way too early.

I think ISO'ing him is a mistake, especially in the new ball movement Ball era we're in. If he moves off the ball and really locks in on D, he would be extremely effective as a 3. No one on this team has the defensive potential Ingram has. That alone makes giving up on him after 2 preseason games extremely premature.

 

Agree with sirron, Sav and Ju in the last few posts. Waaaaayyy too early to lose hope in the kid.

I'll be the first to tell you that my expectations for the kid are sky high and in that regard I feel concerned at the moment. But we need to have our complete roster and some semblence of chemistry within it before we can start throwing dirt on this team.

I do understand that this deserves time and the "sophomore slump" is still a lingering possibility (even though BI traditionally does fall into that category, cause he never really had an epic rookie season to slump from.) So I hope other fans can also demonstrate that patience knowing that we might not be out of the woods any time soon.

Here's the devil in the details... We were lost without Zo and BI in there last night. In the smallest of sample sizes, at the very least, our best quarters have been the 1st till last night... So obviously those two have a major influence in our team success. Offensively he's not there yet, so as others have said and I once again will echo... Become that dude on D before opening up your offensive arsenal (ie Kawhi...Not Durantulame).

Looking at this in a more sinister way, the FO successfully upped our expectations of the kid... Maybe they did the same with other GMs and BI is being groomed to be a valuable trade asset. Not my preference, but still it's a possibility.

This has nothing to really do with BI, but the fan base needs to rightfully lash out cause the effort was horrid last night. We can all stomach a 0-3 preseason record... But falling behind by 20+ points and not even threatening for a W last night is unacceptable. You need a scapegoat for it, cause it's hard to believe that a team reported to be working so hard throughout the offseason can have that type of outing...so BI becomes one of those bull's-eyes. At the moment it's unfair to do so, but he needs to show us something in the near future otherwise it will be hard to talk down those that are presently sharpening their pitchforks.

 

Honestly I feel like the front office is forcing the issue with him to prove their stance on him was justified.

It’s great to be a hard worker but you gotta be able to deliver come game time. We seem to have a lot of of practice warriors IMO.

 

Right. Everyone recognizes what this kid means to the franchise at this point. IMO, we absolutely NEED him to pan out so there's really no choice but to patient unless we move him.

In the meantime though, I think he could benefit from the front office pumping the breaks on the rhetoric and letting him come along a bit more slowly.

 

Yeah. He may be further behind on his development than many of us expected. Honestly all the hype from the organization increased my expectations on him. Its becoming obvious that a lot of that was spin.

 

And to be clear, I like the kid. He's just got a ways to go and I think the team is thrusting him into a role he isn't ready for yet.

 

You don't trade the next Giannis!

 

looks more like Giannis less talented older bro right now lol

 

Yep.

 

ironically, they're asking a lot more out of ingram than milwaukee was out of giannis or SA was out of leonard at the same age. A LOT.

unrealistic.

 

what else did we have to root for?

 

Oh, that's so great, Sirron!. You're the man!. LMAO!!

 

Magic n his hyperboles

 

I definitely agree that Ingram's play in a small sample size has been concerning. However, it's easy to forget that he's a human being 20 year old. As mentally tough as he may become, he's still a kid coming off a disappointing rookie season and high expectations going into his second. Ultimately, if he's a franchise player he'll handle the expectations, so I'm okay with the FO putting on the pressure. I do think he'll turn it around and fairly quickly. He won't necessarily suddenly be a 20 PPG player, but he'll figure out how to be himself in this offense. He was so concerned with showing people he could be assertive and confident that he went away from what makes him such a special player.