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

hadn't heard that one before

Can't concoct a way to gif it though, and of course, I've never seen an application where it was used before, so not a good use of time anyways.

 

haha too funny.

i actually meant it to read "Too Big, Didn't Read"

and @svtzr - ill make sure to warn my future kids to stay off your lawn next time they're playing

 

My bad man. I googled TB;DR and that’s what the first link said.

Kids are welcome to play anywhere they like, I just didn’t want to alienate quality posters. High quality posters is one of the things that makes this place great!

 

I actually didn’t know what it meant so googled it. Not sure what that says about our different personalities...

 

I just thought it was a typo

I didn’t read into it at all

What does that say about me?

 

That you’re too busy defacing Lebron murals...

 

“Allegedly “

 

new power couple^^^???

 

totally understand my man...but (light hearted) jokes also make this place great.

its walking that fine line haha. no worries at all!

I never want to dissuade posters from long thought out posts...thus I would have no point coming here anymore

 

BI makes Sam Perkins look "normal"

 

Love the young core plus LeBron. Particurlarly like the on court chemistry between Zo and Bi. Hopefully they both can be on the court more this year.

 

My goodness, I didn’t realize how long this was....

TLDR; (1) Not everyone is into the numbers as heavily as you. (2) Don’t base Ingram’s value on numbers. Look at what he actually did on the court against real NBA competition.

Sure my man, I’m very interested in your article and would love to read it when you are done or even right now if you aren’t. Would be a very interesting read.

Okay, here is what I mean. When you ask any person who watched Jordan’s career and viewed it strictly for the basketball that he played on the court and why he was so good, the majority of the people will say because he was a great competitor, he had a great midrange game, could jump out the gym, was intense, had great handles, was a great scorer, played elite defense both on and off the ball, was ferocious, was strong, had big hands, etc. I don’t have an actual percentage, but I guarantee you more than 60% of the people who actually saw him play would pretty much all say the same thing. It would be a very small percentage of people if any who would go into his offensive/defensive rating, offensive/defensive win shares, per, true shooting%, pace, usage rating, off/def reb%, assist%, efg%, nrtg, etc.

You went through a lot of work to get all those charts and numbers to prove to us that Ingram is not what everyone is saying because the numbers don’t matchup. I’m saying, the average person is not going to go through all of that to evaluate a player, so when you ask people to argue in that way to prove you wrong, they’re not gonna do it.

Imo, when it comes to evaluation, the only stats I look at and feel that matter are points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and turnovers, but that’s just me. These are the stats that I use to formulate an eye test evaluation along with how that player actually played against actual NBA competition both on offense and defense.

The rest of that stuff is used to either push someone up to make them look better than what they are or to push someone down to make them look worse than what they are. Your entire premise of Ingram’s worth is based off of the numbers you broke down, so that is why I’m saying what I’m saying. A person who doesn’t like numbers wouldn’t be so heavily numbers based in their argument.

Now with that said let’s get back to Ingram. What I’m going to say to you about Ingram is the same thing I said to @therealdeal and that is you can’t improve, grow, or teach length and size and you don’t trade that away, especially with the strides he made from season 1 to season 2.

Ingram is between 6’9 or 6’10 with a 7’3” wingspan. He can score the basketball in multiple ways, he can defend multiple positions, he can handle the ball and create his own shot. As he gets older and progresses and gets better these skills will be enhanced and magnified. Just on size alone he has the potential of a Giannis and or an Anthony Davis imo. He has a bigger height/wingspan ratio (6) than Giannis (4) and only 1 beyond Anthony Davis (7). There is no guarantee that he will reach that, but for me that is where his ceiling is. If Ingram didn’t improve from his rookie to sophomore year than I would agree with you in that I wouldn’t trust that he could or would actually get better, but the fact that he did makes your argument confusing to me.

I don’t know why you say he should not be slashing or going to the basket because he is not efficient and/or because he gets injured. You say he should perfect being a spot up shooter, because that would be more efficient for the team. I disagree.

He is not a shooter. His base style is to slash and get to the basket. For comparison:

He attempted 686 2point fgs shooting 40% and attempted 187 threes shooting 29% his rookie season.
He attempted 761 2point fgs shooting 47% and attempted 105 threes shooting 39% his sophomore season.

You know what this shows me? That he got smarter his second year. Attempted more shots closer to and at the basket and took less threes and became more efficient in both areas.

You want him to be a shooter. Why? That’s not what he is. We don’t want another Chris Bosh / Kevin Love fiasco. What he needs to do is get stronger and get better at free throw shooting because his game predicates this improvement, not shooting. Defensively, he needs to get quicker laterally, but overall his defensive IQ for his age is good. His defensive IQ will increase as he plays more.

With all that said, I would much rather take the risk of a player of ours not living up to their potential then to trade them away and they blow up for someone else.

 

I actually think you may have misunderstood my post. Our perspectives are not as far apart as you think. My apologies for making the last one too long, I'll try to be concise here.

I completely agree with you. My eye test of Ingram showed him to be a very one-dimensional player. And outside of a few advanced stats I used, the majority of my stats were just breakdowns of the points stat. In fact you broke down his ppg below into 2 and 3 pt FGAs. I just broke it down into what the scenario was that generated his points (e.g. PnR, attacking closeout, etc). The rest of it was just ranking how he did amongst other players. No different than saying Player X led the league in scoring.

The rest of my analysis was around the offenses that Ingram and his comparables played in (e.g. The Jazz Flex and Post up Heavy Offense). Again, this sort of insight is something you can't get from stats, you have to watch games to know what offense a team used.

That shows me that he didn't improve much on a glaring weakness in his rookie season - his shooting. He got a little better, but if we ever hope for him to be a complete offensive player, he's going to have to take way more 3s (he passed too many of them up - see the GIF I posted as an example) and shoot better from the line.

Ingram is very good at getting to the rim. But, there's a few problems with that.

1) He sucks at freethrows. You have to shoot well from the line if you want driving to be the premier part of your game.

2) He is weak in the upper body and gets injured. He played only 59 games last year. It will take years for him to develop the upper body mass needed to sustain that playstyle. Other guys like Durant, in similar situations, played a perimeter game to circumvent this. But we established Ingram isn't good at that.

3) He is predictable. If he's not going to take the open 3 and attack the closeout every time, good defensive teams will sniff this out and prevent his drive. See the Draymond GIF I posted earlier of a good example of him doing this to Aminu when he knows he's not going to take the 3. The best players (Kobe, Jordan) were so good because they had multiple options and kept the defense on their toes. With just one good option, Ingram is reduced to a role player. It goes back to basketball 101, the triple threat position.

I don't want him to be a spot up shooter. But if you want him to drive every time, there's only a few ways he can do that.

1) PnR - We don't want to do this because teams can play a drop coverage, for example (see the GIF I posted of the Raptors doing this), which takes away the drive and forces him to shoot. He was awful in PnR situations last year. LakerFilmRoom shares the same opinion, and I can pull some more detail from him if you'd like.

2) ISO - With LeBron, I don't think we want to ISO Ingram. Bad idea.

3) Closeout - Covered why this won't work above.

4) Transition. Our only remaining option.

He needs a very good shot to round out his offensive game and prevent injury. But his poor shooting and FT% indicate to me this won't happen. Compared to other players at a similar stage in their careers (Leonard, George, Hayward, Pierce) his offensive game is much further behind. Because slashing repeatedly is predictable and will lead to injury, he needs to play off ball. But with a suspect shot, the only option is for him to be an off ball cutter, like Livingston in Kerr's offense. It remains to be seen if Luke will incorporate this strategy next season.

 

We've asked BI to be all over the place so far in his 2 whole years in the league. It's not like he came out of college playing that way like Simmons. He has had a ramp up. I think we're going to see more defined role(s) from him with Lebron at the wheel. Still, we'll see a lot more versatile picture of BI than bfc1125roy is painting (my prediction) as I just apparently see different things in my eye-ball test of him. His defensive potential is great, he gets those extend-O arms into things and disrupts. 12.9 attempts a game, he is efficient and is getting good at picking his moments. A lot of his increases over his rookie season are mental. He's a proven distributor. Scoring, distribution, defense, you just don't give up on guys like that. Not at 20 years old on a rook contract. Don't underestimate either. With LBJ coaching someone with the aptitude to actually do what he teaches, who knows what is possible, maybe not even KG.

 

YES. Somehow when I watch Brandon play the last description I would use to describe him after only two seasons, with how much improvement there was in season 2 ..... would be one dimensional. Slasher, shooter, improving handles to already handle the PG position pretty damn well for limited minutes, defender, beginnings of back to the basket, footwork and surely some other things can be added. Kyle Korver is damn good at being one dimensional. IMO.

 

This!

You can't box this dude in yet. He clearly is unlocking achievements as his body changes.

Magic wanted him to get stronger so that he can get to the cup and convert. He's a slasher cause he's a good soldier that's listening to el capo. These days, the game is too relient on the 3ball...so improve on your handle, come strong on the rim run (pause) and for gawd sakes, convert the and1.

Master that and then unlock the next achievement as you expand out to the 3point line. This is by design and it's not cause BI is limited to only being a slasher.

If he doesn't become highly efficient with the gravitational pull that is LABron, then we can start questioning his potential...till then, the sample size is too small and the box is still wide open (pause some more).