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

With Kawhi being traded, I'm just going to say again that I'm really happy to see Ingram back this year.

 

Everyone thats seeing Brandon has been trying to feel up his arms lol.

 

You "feel good" obsessed people who are so easily woooo'd by handshakes and grab a**.

Raptors told Derozen he wasn't getting traded last week. Look what happened.

If Toronto calls Magic and says, we want BI and fillers for Kawhi, he's doing it.

Lakers need to win now. If they have to wait another year, ok, I'm cool with it too but if there is a slight chance you can upgrade to win in 2019, you have to do it.

 

especially that GS is ripe for the taking by top teams

 

I don't know if Toronto would've traded Demar for BI + fillers, because that's essentially what it would be. Unless Kawhi holds them hostage, that's another story. Plus, that would be added salt to what they already did to Demar. Oh, we just traded our one loyal star player for a young prospect. That would be franchise suicide unless BI miraculously develops into KD in the next year or so.

 

thats what spurs asked for

 

Did he just say "you people" ?

 

I just looked at Ingram’s statline for the first time in awhile.

And damn it’s sexy.

16 points, 5 boards, and 4 assists with a steal and a block while shooting 47% from the field and 39% from 3. At 20 years old.

That’s significantly better than a lot of the stars we optimistically compare him to were at the same age.

 

Eh, that's honestly a bunch of "feel good BS" us fans tend to get lost in.

Putting up stats on a bad team has never been impressive. MCW and Tyreke Evans are two examples of this. But we can find many more. 39% from 3 on less than 2 attempts a game isn't that great either, especially when he passed up on several open 3s this season due to a lack of confidence.

There are many prospects who are more valuable than him right now. Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, Ben Simmons - just to name a few. Most other teams would laugh at us for putting him in the same discussion.

At the end of the day, don't get me wrong. He has the potential to be a very good player. But given the way he plays (slasher), he doesn't have the body to sustain that type of play for an 82 game season, hence the frequent injuries. He will need to become more perimeter oriented and off ball, but I don't see him adding this to his game so far.

He's a very long term project. Probably another 3-4 years from making a solid impact. But honestly, I am not sure if you want to wait that long for him to develop, given we have a 34 year old LeBron. If he doesn't make improvements from this season on, his value will decline (e.g. D'Angelo Russell), as his "potential" becomes less and less valuable. Even folks like Laker Film Room don't see Ingram developing into a primary option type player.

TL;DR: His stats last season are nothing to get hype about. The jury is still very much out on Brandon Ingram. I am just not sure if we should be patient developing him given our roster, and the fact that a lack of significant improvement will reduce his value as an asset.

 

I appreciate your thoughtful commentary but I do disagree, and so I feel bad for this but my gut reaction to your post is this:

Nah.

 

Honestly, there's not a whole lot of logic to back up your statement, aside from a statline on a 35 win team, where Ingram was allowed to ISO as much as he wanted.

Do you think Ingram can make a significant impact as a slasher next year without significantly more upper body mass? IMO it will just lead to a lot of injuries, like it did last season.

Stats, like I said, on a bad team, don't mean much. The circlejerk of overrating young players is a bit much sometimes...

Tyreke Evans age 20: 20/5/6 on 52% TS. Translated to very little later in his career. I can copy paste more, obviously, but I think you get the idea.

I know we are all hoping Ingram is Giannis, Paul George, Jimmy Butler etc. Somebody who slowly gets better over time. But watching them play on their teams, rather than just blindly comparing stats, you can see a clear difference in the way they attacked on offense (along with the latter 2 playing great defense by their second season).

 

It's more about how he plays in the Laker offense, than blindly looking at his stats. He doesn't have the physical tools to be a slasher and isolation player, even though that's how he wants to play, and how he trains. This results in more injuries than are necessary for him.

His shooting is seriously suspect, and prevents him from playing more off-ball and on the perimeter while he develops the tools to attack the rim more effectively. College FT% is the best predictor of NBA 3pt %, and he shot 68% on 5 FTA at Duke. I don't view Ingram's shooting as having improved significantly, considering he attempted less 3 pointers this season, and passed up a ton of open ones that he knew he couldn't confidently hit. Also, for someone who supposedly can become a good shooter, shooting 68% from the line on nearly 5 attempts per game is pretty sad. He has a lot more work to do than simple stats would tell you.

Even if he develops into an all star in 3-4 years, I don't think it helps us contend right now. And if his stats don't improve next year, or its an injury riddled year for him, we lose the chance to "sell high" on him as an asset.

I would say, out of our young players, I like him the best. But... I don't think he has the potential to be a primary option or elite defensive player, based on what I've seen - like many who post the graphics comparing his 2nd year stats to Giannis, Butler, Leonard etc believe

 

This has nothing to do with Leonard. I just don't share the same optimism about Ingram developing into a primary option fast enough to help our team. I feel like I'm repeating myself because nobody is actually willing to have a fruitful discussion about how he plays in the offense, what his role next to LeBron might look like, etc. Hyping up young players is fine, and I said it myself, I like him the best of them all. But I am not on the Ingram bandwagon as much as others on this board, and I think I've explained why. While those who say they are just keep repeating the same statline and saying it was better than Giannis at year 2, not paying attention to how they were used within their respective offenses, their physical tools, how they played in college (or Europe), etc.

I'll give you an example. You mention injuries as a knock on his game. Do you know why he got injured frequently (answer: trying to repeatedly attack the rim). He didn't focus much on developing his perimeter and off ball play, as you can see by his FT%. In fact there's no strong indication he will ever be an elite shooter (it's definitely possible as Leonard was able to turn it around , but not very likely as he was more of an exception). He has to make adjustments in how he attacks in the Laker offense, but I don't see evidence of that occurring. And no, playing him at point guard is not the answer. Defense is an entirely different conversation.

There's way too much of a circlejerk around young talent here sometimes. And I get it, when Kobe declined and no FAs would take meetings with us, our draft picks were the only thing that we had to look forward to. But now it's different. Magic and Rob have done a great job of finding role players in the draft, often with late picks, but I don't think we've drafted superstar talent. In fact, we've repeatedly missed out on it, with guys like Porzingis, Mitchell, Tatum, Booker etc.

I don't mean to be a pessimist, but it's the reason why many NBA fans laugh at us when we put him in the same sentence as guys like Simmons, Tatum, Mitchell.