lordjeff05 wrote:A couple things to just put out their. One, Brandon Ingram has a net positive plus minus for the month of November, and has been a net positive on plus minus since after the first four games.
Secondly, I readily admit I was wrong about Ingram but at some point Lakers fans have to get over this idea that people hatred him becuase he was a Laker. The dude has taken a leap, plain and simple. Magic fans and OKC fans didn’t get all over the boards saying that Victor Oladipo was unfairly called a bum and the only reason he didn’t get shine was becuase of the team he was on.
Folks realized he took a largely unexpected leap.
Now I know that Lakers fans keep saying Ingram was balling to end the season last year, and he was but the player we are seeing right now is a different player than that guy.
When you look at Ingram’s game there is one glaring change. Yeah he’s seen a gradual uptick in his overall fg % which is not surprising. He’s parlayed more 4, so there’s a bump in his rebounding and blocking numbers. His free throw rate is about the same. The big difference and the thing people couldn’t foresee was that he has TRIPLED the amount of threes he is taking while IMPROVING his three point percentage by over 30 percent. That’s crazy. I don’t think anyone was expecting that and if you were specifically projecting that kind of growth, I’d love to see it.
The Pels issues with Ingram and to some extent Lonzo, were about his unwillingness and inability to consistently space the floor without the ball in his hands. That made it hard to see him as a good complimentary player to a guy like Zion who would benefit from an empty paint. (PS Lonzo’s 3 point shooting has also greatly improved. Disregard the overall numbers and focus on his catch and shoot, it has been a huge improvement).
Pels fans preferred Tatum because his game seemed to fit better as a complimentary 2nd option. Remember we weren’t looking for our “guy” we already had that with Zion, and to a lesser extent with Jrue. Anybody we added was supposed to compliment the pieces we already had. We didn’t need a first option and the thinking was we didn’t need another ball dominant player. Tatum, seemed more comfortable contributing without the ball in his hands, spaced the floor much better and the other aspects of his game seemed more polished. He was a better rebounder, he collected more blocks and steals, he seemed to be a better team defender, etc. Thats the stuff you look for on your 2nd/3rd guy. Ingram had more of the profile of s guy who could produce but needed the ball in his hands in order to do so. We didn’t really need that.
One of the things that Lakers fans have been spot on about though in regards to the comparison is that Ingram has demonstrated a capacity to go off that Tatum has never shown. Tatum is consistently good but Ingram has games in past years where he looked unstoppable. Sometimes you see that as a sign of inconsistency but it can also be a sign of a higher ceiling.
So in short, I and many other Pels fans were wrong, but Ingram’s bump, at least in the way that it has happened, was unlikely I’ve never been so happy to be wrong about a basketball opinion.
Pels are going to max him, and they will smile while they do it.
All of this. I keep being skeptical and expecting his shooting numbers to start to tail off, but he looks so fluid and comfortable shooting because of his length, that maybe this is just his shooting potential.
It's still hard for me to believe a guy that has shot between 68-74% the last few years at the foul line will keep up the ridiculous 45% shooting from down town though. He's actually shooting worse at the rim by 7%, but a blistering 60% from 10-16. I just want to know what he'll be averaging when things start to balance out to more reasonable levels...
But yea, like you said, all this "you guys only hated him because he was a Laker!" stuff was ridiculous, he's never shot the ball at anywhere near this level, and his shooting splits never gave any indication that he would suddenly become a deep ball machine. There are two guys right now with both higher 3PT % and 3P FGA per game right. He's bombing at a level he's never approached, but the rest of his game isn't a huge cry from what it has always been, and his rebounding, passing, and defense are really nothing special at the moment, it's all his scoring, and it's all hinged on shooting potential that we could and should still be wary about.
When he develops pullup 3pt its really gonna be unstoppable (for example could you imagine pnr with Zion?)
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