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

Ingram scores about 67% at the rim... his biggest weakness and area with most opportunity for improvement are his shaky handles driving in traffic to the rim, as well as getting pushed around and moved down low.

Giannis scores 78% at the rim
KD has scored as high as 80% from there
AD has scored around 77% the last two seasons there
Ben Simmons scores around 72%
Dwight is scoring 85% right now at the rim.

Yet Ingram with his inferior rim scoring has a higher TS% than Ben 56%, AD 56%, about the same as Giannis 61% and lower than KD 63%

What that tells me if he raises his interior efficiency is that he will be as good or better than all of them. (At shooting efficiency)

The gap between BI and the others is only at the rim.

Tell me that can't be improved with a little experience and strength.

At any rate, I agree I'm jumping the gun a little... so fair points from your side.

But it's not unrealistic for Ingram to improve his rim scoring even if his 3 point shot comes back to earth a bit.

 

i'll keep telling you if i have to. i mean, reality should be doing a good job by itself, though.

right.

40 games isn't enough for you? well, i guess 6 years of all-nba play from AD isn't enough for some, so...

giannis had already transformed quite a bit physically at this point in his career.

i've raised this point, like, 8 times, with no effective rebuttal. AD's team was just as bad around him as BI's is this year. yet AD is being docked points for not dragging them to the finals whilst we celebrate ingram maybe dragging his team out of dead last as we approach mid-season.

 

I've said AD is better, but I cannot deny either that Ingram's offensive efficiency is really becoming more than a fluke.

Dwight's PER was 26 at his peak but it still was pure athleticism... from a offensive skill set standpoint his abilities were pretty primitive.
AD is way more versatile than Dwight offensively but watching him all year it seems less versatile than Ingram.

If Ingram starts scoring at the rim with elite efficiency then he's the equal of these other guys... I don't get why that's so crazy to say.

AD is far beyond Ingram on the defense... he's far beyond peak Dwight on offense.

But what Ingram is doing also shouldn't be denied if he can sustain it.

 

ingram's offensive efficiency isn't a fluke. i've maintained from day one that he looked like the same player we had at the end of last year, and the stats are bearing that out. i took issue with the idea that any real leap was made, other than being handed the keys. my regression to the mean comment referred to his top performances prior to this year (as opposed to his very hot start, when he was shooting 55% from the field and 47% from three--that was, as i said then, unsustainable).

and again, the real issue is whether him being an efficient 25ppg scorer on a bad team makes you worry about having traded him. it shouldn't, imo.

if NO calls me back and says can we just reset, i tell them goodbye and good luck.

 

I began the season thinking BI was behind AD in both offensive ability and defensive skills.
Significantly in both categories... and this is coming from an Ingram Stan (obviously)
No one could have predicted the quantum leap in FT% or sustained 3 pt shooting on high volume.
I knew he was capable of being decent as his 39% second year numbers hinted at... but I was hoping for a respectable 36% based on college numbers.
In fact, I fully expected him to fall back already to that range.

I'm also aware that AD is not shooting at his normal mid range efficiency.
I agree this is probably a function of his health as he's settling for a lot of fall aways and three pointers which he probably doesn't take if he's healthy.

But my argument hasn't been that BI is better than AD... I expected him to be a good third option behind Zion and Jrue... putting up 20 PPG on hopefully 57 to 58 TS% (based on his upward trend) And he might fall down to that eventually when Zion comes back.

My argument was that we should have signed AD next season and sacrificed only Ingram... or if he had the breakout year... trade away other pieces at that point and kept our picks.

I'm irritated because of the sheer wastefulness.

You like the idea because of the bird in the hand philosophy, perhaps because of what happened with PG... I get it and it makes sense.

But I still wish we took the gamble and waited.

I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised to see we have a legit shot at the title this year... didn't think that was likely at the time of the trade.

I did have hope when I saw we signed Dwight and all the shooters... instead of randos like Lance and Beasley

I was also pleased with the Boogie signing as you know.

I like AD a lot as a person and a player... I'm just not convinced he can lead a team to victory so far. Maybe if he gets his health back that will change.

My main complaints are simply that we gave too much and when I see BI and Ball put up 27 each, it doesn't help me feel any better.

 

my point was that in november and december, he's shooting 39% from three, which was about the best he did here.

anyway, if we waited, AD would be elsewhere, and we'd be basically out of FA lives. add in that i'm pretty sure lebron demands a trade rather than play another year like last year, and we'd be all the way back to square one except about to max out ingram on a roster that won 34 games or something.

ball has been pretty bad all year, and looking at one of his like, 4 good performances is really disingenuous. players of ball/hart level can be had for the MLE and less, as will the level of draft pick we're likely to convey in the end. it was basically ingram for AD. we won.

 

Yeah, BI and Zo put up great numbers, but it was against a load management Rockets that didn’t play Harden and Westbrook.

I agree more with abeer that trends and the bigger picture point of view is important than just watching numbers.

 

Agree with @abeer3 waiting or gambling was out of the question. The window of opportunity was 2 years max given LeBron's age. We had to strike when we did.

And this is coming from one of Ingram's biggest supporters, in case you couldn't tell from my avatar.

 

If you want to make the point that we had no choice because of Klutch and LBJ... well sure, I can't disagree with that.

But last year you all were spared my nine month long rant against them.

Mind you, I wouldn't mind if they owned us... I just don't like the idea of being run by a sports agency when they have players in play. Too much conflict of interest. I would have screamed if we signed Markus Morris on top of KCP.

It's why you knew we'd never go after Jimmy instead... because of the Klutch connection even though it would have given us more depth.

I get Lonzo is almost at the lost cause point but then you wonder how a player who can have a huge triple double in his second game as a teenager could fall so far. And then a solid 27 point performance makes you dream again.

I mean it's not like we drafted him like Porzingis. Every executive thought he was a top five pick.

 

I agree and really like BI too, we had to make that trade. Lebron or no Lebron actually. AD is a franchise cornerstone, Lebron just made it even more obvious.

 

If i can trade for a superstar, i do it 100% of the time. We gambled on Paulina, load manager, couldn't get a meeting from a freakin Aldridge or Pau's brother. f*** that, i rather trade everyone for a 26yo phenom, than be stuck with a 30 win team. There are only 3 players in this league you go after with everything you got, THREE. Davis is one of them... and he's ours (thanks to Bron and Klutch).

 

comparing the two isn't really fair. AD weighs twice as much.

 

Is there any way to hide this from Meat?

Spoiler

Probably not. Best to get out in front of the news.





https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/8881eb49-c643-4523-8486-cade167be037

 

• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why

There are clearly 5 W's. Who got left out and why? and Who's on 1st base? How did this happen?

 

great job. putting up stats and winning games, recognized by...whoever decides these things.

 

Another difficult game for BI; he seems to struggle to play vs us.

Didn't really see anything that looked significantly different with BI, other than him having the green light offensively.

One thing that I'm not particularly fond of his game (and still notice) is how he develops tunnel vision in which when he gets the ball, you know he is going to shoot the ball and not do anything else. It results in BI making the game look visually difficult to play.

 

"I taught him well."

-----

 

Ingram scores 29 with 8 rebounds and 11 assists leading the Pels to a victory over the Bulls without Jrue or Zion.

Didn't shoot particularly well but drew fouls, distributed well and made his free throws.

Kids are 7-3 over the last ten including a controversial no call loss to the Jazz

Hope they can keep it up.