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

Maybe we are wrong on all comparisons on him. Maybe he’s going to be like Lamar Odom. Some nights he’s “Casper”, some nights he’s great. Never amazing, never awful, just very solid, a 3rd guy on a great team. Too early to say, but I’m starting to see Odom. He can board and bring the ball up, get to the hoop with that length, shoot decent enough, hit the occasional three, but never wow in any one category. It that were the case I’d be good with it, Odom was super solid and loved by his teammates, quiet like Ingram yet a leader of the team.

 

I love that he's picking his spots a lot better as far as when to drive to the basket and when to shoot that perimeter shot or mix it up with the pull up games.

He's coming along nicely. I enjoyed that comparison chart you posted @therealdeal showing the stats between PG13 and Ingram through there first two years, granted Ingram's not even done with this year.

Ingram's gonna get there

 

Ingram at 20 thus far (sophomore year):
16.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.8 blocks 45.2 FG%, 33.9 3PT%, 68.2 FT% (34.9 minutes)

Paul George at 20 (Rookie year):
7.8 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 1 steal, 0.4 blocks 45.3 FG%, 29.7 3P%, 76.2 FT% (20.7 minutes)

Paul George at 20 Per36:
13.5 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.8 steals, 0.7 blocks 45.3 FG%, 29.7 3P%, 76.2 FT%

Paul George at 21 (sophomore year):
12.1 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 0.6 blocks 44 FG%, 38.5 3P%, 80.2 FT% (29.7 minutes)

I'd shudder to think what people would say about Paul George the rookie today. That's not a reflection of Ingram, just an observation.

 

Cherry picking how?

 

I literally gave the exact same age and provided the season in which they played. I didn't say which stats were better, just provided the numbers. You can look them up for yourself if you'd like, but they directly provided off of basketball-reference.

 

I posted those exact numbers.

Do I misunderstand what cherrypicking is? You literally took those numbers off my post.

I posted George's first year to factor in age as well as experience. I didn't say which set of stats were better. I didn't say Ingram was equal to or better than George. You can take from those numbers that George is more efficient, a better shooter, and a better defender. I didn't say either way. I also asked rhetorically about how people would react to George's rookie year not as an insult to George, but out of respect to Ingram. He gets beaten up game to game and yet he's showing exactly the kind of growth a very good young wing should show. Everyone who was a head over heels Russell fan leaned into advanced numbers and trends comparing him to previous point guards. All I did was provide similar context for Ingram. I honestly don't understand how it's cherrypicking if you took the exact same numbers as I posted and just shuffled out George's rookie numbers which provide further context that you don't value (age).

 

I think the cherrypicking is being done where abeer3 pointed out that Ingram is doing better than Paul George in year two, but you fail to mention other players that may have done better than Ingram in their first two years, and then washed out of the league. I work in the financial industry where cherry picking is a giant issue. A new firm will show their results against a well established firm's first two years and brag about their performance, but in reality, it is worse than a lot of other firms' first couple years, some of which don't exist anymore. To do a real comparison you should take the last 75 wings taken high in the last 15 drafts and compare all their numbers and then look at how many washed out and how many became all-stars. Granted that'd be a pain in the butt and take a long time.

This is not to say that I believe Ingram won't be good. I think he will. The truth is we are way too early in most of our players' careers to know one way or the other.

 

I don't have the time to do that. I was just comparing the kid to one specific person, someone who we are all pretty invested in. In this scenario, I don't understand how what I did was cherrypicking. I mean if we're going to compare Ingram to a composite typical SF in a specific age/experience range, I think he'll stack up even better honestly.

But more to the point: I provided the exact same numbers that @abeer3 did but he says I was cherrypicking. I genuinely don't understand how my numbers in the context provided were cherrypicking to make Ingram look better, but those exact same numbers provided without age context are not. If you want to look deeper into the numbers with advanced stats and whatnot, okay I get it, but we're talking about the same numbers minus matching the age to the year played. If you want to ignore age, okay I understand that, but we're still talking sophomore to sophomore numbers that are at least comparable.

I didn't provide any analysis saying Ingram was better, the numbers were provided to draw your own conclusions. I can see how in context it seemed like I was ragging on George to make Ingram look better by saying what I did about George's rookie year, but that wasn't my intent. My intent was to show impatient fans that Ingram's progress is fine and we're judging these kids too harshly in small windows. George's scoring numbers weren't as good as Ingram's are in the same age or experience range and George is a very, very good scorer. All I was implying is we should be patient.