Official Brandon Ingram Thread

[Thaddy]

He's 185lbs at most. You can't add strength without gaining weight when you're that frail.

We'll see what the staff do, I guess. If he's adding it in his calves, that's one thing. But putting pressure on the superior portions of his body is going to test the joint integrity more than seems to make a lot of sense.

Calve muscle isn't going to do anything and calves are just hard to strengthen and add muscle mass to. He needs stronger quads and hamstrings and an ass like Lowry. A strong lowerbody will reinforce his knee joints and act as stabilizers that decrease the chance of a knee or ankle injury. The problem here is that at 27 years old his body is pretty much what it will be at this point.

He shouldn't be adding muscle to his upper body, that doesn't help NBA players much. We even saw this with Gradey his upperbody got stronger and prior to summer league it looked concerning. Then guess what happened, Dick got injured in his first or second summer league game.

The silverlining is that players like TMac had poor training and that's something Ingram might be doing. If the Raptors can decouple him from his personal training staff and try a new approach — one where he focuses on tendon reinforcement and lower body training — we might see the best version of him in Toronto.

[Boogie!]

To me this means Barnes is gonna be a defensive specialist a la draymond green as initially chomped, because the raptors now realize that scoring isn’t his forte. Also we’re in a league now where elite offense is much mkre valuable than defensive stopper… the only issue is his health but it is what it is.

Barnes the rookie scored 15 points a game as a roamer, Draymond?

There is a lot of hate towards Scottie when he has been told to go out there and "expand" his offensive game. Everyone knew he was never going to be a #1, that was all in the scouting report. Now everybody is hating because he is not a #1 and is not playing amazing as the central point of the offense and trying stuff that he has never done in his life. Relax people, Scottie is going to be a great Pippen and we just need to get the Jordan. Both types of players are very difficult to get.

See this is the problem… people get mad when you put limitations on Scottie’s game. I’ve said this so often. And then they act like no one on the board expects Scottie to be a scorer.

I’m not sure why people get so excited for a guy shooting 44/26 while given free rein to do whatever he wants basically and has full organizational support. It’s okay to suggest Scottie is limited. Watch the freaking games and watch him play. It’s not hate it’s called objective analysis.

You’re the one that needs to relax and trying to place these expectations on players. Even calling him pippen is so delusional, considering pippen is one of the greatest of all time… it also suggests what I keep saying over and over that people don’t really have a proper idea of how to evaluate players skills.

[Scase]

But it still brings us right back to the biggest issue with the trade, his health. And every single year except for last year, they've had losing records against teams above .500, and pretty bad records at that. Sure, being in the west is harder, but if you are still losing to all the good teams, and really only beating bad teams, an almost .500 record with him isn't much to go on.

He isn't the only one who has been missing a lot from that team, so I don't think looking at their record is super meaningful to begin with.

At the end of the day, the record is the record though. I don't put a whole lot of stock into it aside from, it's been a losing team pretty much every year but last year, 22-23 was a 42-40 team so I guess that barely counts too.

Last year they had BI play 64 games, CJ play 66 games, Zion play 70 games, Herb play 76 games, and Jonas play 82 games. With their bench floating between 57 and 67 games. That netted them 49 wins. That's a pretty healthy year.

The year prior, BI played 45, CJ played 75, Zion played 29, Herb/Trey played 66/79 games, and Jonas 79. They won 42 games.

That's a pretty huge swing in health from one year to the next for pretty much only BI/Zion, and the difference was pretty much just 7 wins.

So we can say the record doesnt matter too much, but we can't ignore the trend. Injuries, fit, skill, no matter what, overwhelmingly the impact hasnt been that massive in the W/L column, so I think expecting him to be some big boon to the team is a bit of a high expectation. This was all coming from comparing him to KAT/Bam/JB who have done the same, or better, on winning teams, not just randomly espousing his impact.

[tsherkin]

Calve muscle isn't going to do anything and calves are just hard to strengthen and add muscle mass to. He needs stronger quads and hamstrings and an ass like Lowry. A strong lowerbody will reinforce his knee joints and act as stabilizers that decrease the chance of a knee or ankle injury. The problem here is that at 27 years old his body is pretty much what it will be at this point.

Having ever added upper leg muscle while I was recovering from knee problems, I can't say I have your confidence in this approach. It **** my knee up much worse. Anecdotal, for sure, but having consulted with physicians and rehab specialists and stuff on the subject, I remain leery.

He shouldn't be adding muscle to his upper body, that doesn't help NBA players much. We even saw this with Gradey his upperbody got stronger and prior to summer league it looked concerning. Then guess what happened, Dick got injured in his first or second summer league game.

I agree with that.

The silverlining is that players like TMac had poor training and that's something Ingram might be doing. If the Raptors can decouple him from his personal training staff and try a new approach — one where he focuses on tendon reinforcement and lower body training — we might see the best version of him in Toronto.

We shall definitely see what our staff can work out with him.

[RaptorLakerJay]

We don't need 65+ games from Ingram. We just need a team with good depth so that the team has a solid record, and that he plays in playoffs. Kawhi played 60 games only but played entire post-season. I don't care at all wishing that he played like 70 games that season. They'll probably follow a similar approach to Kawhi by load managing whenever they can. If Ingram plays 50 games but Raps are 2nd - 4th, I'll take that easily. With strong development from everyone, it's possible.

[RaptorLakerJay]

Why Masai and Bobby got Ingram.

Read on Twitter

[ciueli]

We're already playing Scottie high 30s in minute totals per game in a year when we are supposed to be tanking. What makes you think there will be a lot of free minutes at PF in a year when we are actually trying to win games? For that matter, we shouldn't even want Ingram playing PF as we are already an undersized team, I can't see Ingram successfully defending or being a functional rebounder against larger players.

In no way was I suggesting Ingram at the 4, not sure where you got that.

You were claiming having Ingram wasn't going to reduce minutes for players like Ochai, Gradey, and Ja'Kobe (plus whoever we draft if he's a swing), the logical assumption is you see him playing minutes at the 4. What's the alternative, play him as a PG or C? Maybe you're right and Ingram won't reduce minutes for our young swings because he'll be injured all the time but that's an even worse outcome, right?

Ultimately, having poor defence at the staring 1, 2, and 3 spots is going to hurt this team,

But again, we won't have poor defense at the 3 if Ingram is playing.

Brandon Ingram has zero seasons with a positive RAPTOR defence value, zero seasons with a positive defensive Box +/-. He's not incredible at rebounding, shot blocking, or steals, his defensive rating numbers don't stand out. I don't see numbers to indicate he's a good defender, that's what I'm going by. Do you have stats or information that indicate the opposite?

You can't use anything about this season as a positive, he's played 18 games. If next season is anything like this season we're completely screwed because 18 games from him by this point would be a disaster.

I mean, if the volume question is what we're pulling, then I can. Because there's precedent in his career, so it's a very simple tactical shift to things he's already done before. Ingram is an excellent shooter, this will not be an issue.

The precedent in his career is disappointment. If that's what you're relying on to predict what will happen next season prepare to be disappointed.

You completely missed my point here.

I might have. Your hostility has made it somewhat more challenging to parse what you're on about.

I mean, you're the one who started it, right? I posted what I thought was a pretty straightforward unbiased take on the reasons we shouldn't have done the Ingram deal and then you picked it apart with one piece where you jumped all over me saying I couldn't be more wrong if I tried. Now you're calling me hostile?

Ingram is a jump shooter who doesn't get to the line all that much. The starting 5 is largely composed of players who also don't get to the line and draw a lot of fouls, maybe outside Barrett and he needs the ball in his hands to do that which will happen much less with Ingram on board and IQ healthy. It would be fine if Ingram was a 3+D type helping in other areas of deficiency for this team, but he isn't, again this looks like a bad fit. For reference, this team is currently 24th in the league in % of points from free throws, that's not necessarily bad but adding in that we're 29th in % of points from 3 pointers and it's pretty clear we're already relying too much on scoring 2 pointers and need diversification of offence.

Then why does referencing Demar matter? Neither of them are particularly efficient players. Ingram shoots more 3s and is better at the line, Demar gets to the line. The difference here to our offense is eFG% vs FT/FGA, so it's about the same in terms of weight in the four factors. It seems an irrelevant point.

It's a bad fit, I've explained this many times. Being better at getting to the FT line is something we could do as a team to get better, another example of what Ingram doesn't do to help us. You're too focused on looking at players in a vacuum instead of team construction as a whole, we need players who do different things and fill different roles, we don't have that right now.

It's very dependant on us not drafting another SG or SF. Maybe there's a trade to be made that sends out one or more of Gradey, Ja'Kobe, Agbaji, or even Barrett to smooth out the roster, but right now we are overloaded on swings at the expense of bigs, that's just a fact. The worst part is this may induce Masai to draft for need instead of BPA with our top pick this year, I've already joked about them selecting Khaman Maluach if they fall out of the top 5 because they could play him off the bench and plug a hole at backup centre.

Sure. If we get someone worthwhile, then we can deal with that when it comes up, I guess. We need to have a draft slot and selection of relevance before I worry overmuch about that.

It probably won't matter because we're going to play Ingram and win a bunch of games to end out the season, yet another reason we shouldn't have done the Ingram deal, but whatever, right?

It's relevant because he doesn't have a reputation of a) getting his teams into the playoffs every season and b) having a lot of success even if he does get there. Not saying that he can't be part of a successful team in the right situation, but I don't believe the Raptors are that team or that right situation for him.

But that's a non-starter of an argument when one adds context, so that can't be taken seriously.

Should Ingram’s injury record fail to improve, it will have major consequences for Toronto.

Why?

If he is heavily unhealthy, we tank by default and seek another high draft pick.

No we won't, we'll be good enough to either just miss the play-in or make it, then wind up drafting outside the top 10. We can't even tank properly this season when we had a ton of injuries early on and a bottom 2 record for a while, you think we're going to tank in a season where Masai and Bobby are fighting for a new contract?

[Thaddy]

Calve muscle isn't going to do anything and calves are just hard to strengthen and add muscle mass to. He needs stronger quads and hamstrings and an ass like Lowry. A strong lowerbody will reinforce his knee joints and act as stabilizers that decrease the chance of a knee or ankle injury. The problem here is that at 27 years old his body is pretty much what it will be at this point.

Having ever added upper leg muscle while I was recovering from knee problems, I can't say I have your confidence in this approach. It **** my knee up much worse. Anecdotal, for sure, but having consulted with physicians and rehab specialists and stuff on the subject, I remain leery.

He shouldn't be adding muscle to his upper body, that doesn't help NBA players much. We even saw this with Gradey his upperbody got stronger and prior to summer league it looked concerning. Then guess what happened, Dick got injured in his first or second summer league game.

I agree with that.

The silverlining is that players like TMac had poor training and that's something Ingram might be doing. If the Raptors can decouple him from his personal training staff and try a new approach — one where he focuses on tendon reinforcement and lower body training — we might see the best version of him in Toronto.

We shall definitely see what our staff can work out with him.

The vastus medialis muscle is the most important muscle to strengthen for knee stability. I had a ACL surgery a few years ago and once the wrap came off I was surprised by how much my quad atrophied. My rehab involved doing quarter squats and other quad exercises to stabilize the knee joint.

Side note, this is a problem with Chomche as well. He recently got injured and there hasn't been any media coverage on if he's okay. He also has an extremely weak lower body.

A good example would be OG. He tore his ACL and then he built up his legs. He hasn't had knee issues since. I don't know the exact interview but he mentioned he does a lot of squatting.

[Buff]

See this is the problem… people get mad when you put limitations on Scottie’s game. I’ve said this so often. And then they act like no one on the board expects Scottie to be a scorer.

I don't speak for everyone, myself it irks me when the limitations are silly like "Draymond". And whoever is expecting him to be a #1 did not read the scouting report.

I’m not sure why people get so excited for a guy shooting 44/26 while given free rein to do whatever he wants basically and has full organizational support.

Again, personally I get excited about a guy who plays great defense and has no problem playing his role.

It’s okay to suggest Scottie is limited. Watch the freaking games and watch him play. It’s not hate it’s called objective analysis.

Ok, so you sustain that Scottie's role and production should be of a Drayming Green? Is that your objective analysis?

You’re the one that needs to relax and trying to place these expectations on players. Even calling him pippen is so delusional, considering pippen is one of the greatest of all time… it also suggests what I keep saying over and over that people don’t really have a proper idea of how to evaluate players skills.

I assumed you'd understand that "Pippen" is a role. But whatever, you seem angry and I'm trying not to do angry.

[Scase]

We don't need 65+ games from Ingram. We just need a team with good depth so that the team has a solid record, and that he plays in playoffs. Kawhi played 60 games only but played entire post-season. I don't care at all wishing that he played like 70 games that season. They'll probably follow a similar approach to Kawhi by load managing whenever they can. If Ingram plays 50 games but Raps are 2nd - 4th, I'll take that easily. With strong development from everyone, it's possible.

And what makes you think if he plays 50 games in the season, he'll even be available for the playoffs? Kawhi is 10x the player BI is, and we also had a really stacked team, so him only playing 60 games wasnt a big deal.

Plus, paying 40mil/yr for 50 games is just....awful. Like we've had our core pieces not miss many games this year outside of IQ, and we're at 17 wins, we are not in a position where we can sign guys with the expectation of only getting 50-60 games out of them.

[tsherkin]

You were claiming having Ingram wasn't going to reduce minutes for players like Ochai, Gradey, and Ja'Kobe (plus whoever we draft if he's a swing), the logical assumption is you see him playing minutes at the 4. What's the alternative, play him as a PG or C? Maybe you're right and Ingram won't reduce minutes for our young swings because he'll be injured all the time but that's an even worse outcome, right?

I see him primarily playing SF minutes. I don't see a reason he needs to shift positions much, especially to the guard slots.

But we don't have a lot of talent at the 3 that I really care about right now, and Scottie can and does play the 4, so he can shuffle over more regularly to accommodate Ingram easily enough.

Brandon Ingram has zero seasons with a positive RAPTOR defence value, zero seasons with a positive defensive Box +/-. He's not incredible at rebounding, shot blocking, or steals, his defensive rating numbers don't stand out. I don't see numbers to indicate he's a good defender, that's what I'm going by. Do you have stats or information that indicate the opposite?

"Good," "Bad" and "Not Good" are all distinct qualifiers. He doesn't need to stand out, he just needs to not be a problem. Which he won't be.

The precedent in his career is disappointment. If that's what you're relying on to predict what will happen next season prepare to be disappointed.

This is an empty statement. I was looking at years of him shooting the 3 quite well when I was looking at his previous seasons. Minging about "precedent in his career is disappointment" is irrelevant to clear proof of his ability to float 3pt volume with efficiency.

I mean, you're the one who started it, right? I posted what I thought was a pretty straightforward unbiased take on the reasons we shouldn't have done the Ingram deal and then you picked it apart with one piece where you jumped all over me saying I couldn't be more wrong if I tried. Now you're calling me hostile?

No. There was nothing hostile in my reply. You were very much incorrect about Ingram's 3pt shooting, and I noted that. It isn't hostile to note inaccuracy.

It's a bad fit, I've explained this many times. Being better at getting to the FT line is something we could do as a team to get better, another example of what Ingram doesn't do to help us. You're too focused on looking at players in a vacuum instead of team construction as a whole, we need players who do different things and fill different roles, we don't have that right now.

The utility of getting to the line is mostly about efficiency. You can comment about putting the opposition in foul trouble, but that'll be of variable impact on any given night. If you don't have foul draw but you have superior shooting ability, it evens out at worst. And we'll still have RJ, and the bigs. And Quick is pretty decent about it, even though he isn't terribly efficient either.

You speak of me considering players in a vacuum, but you have to address the value of the trait you're expressing. If Ingram's league-average or better in efficiency, we are already ahead of the game based on how that will affect our team offense. And the spacing he provides will help the other guys on the team to a considerable degree as well. There are multiple paths to the end destination.

It probably won't matter because we're going to play Ingram and win a bunch of games to end out the season, yet another reason we shouldn't have done the Ingram deal, but whatever, right?

We might. We might not. We shall see.

No we won't, we'll be good enough to either just miss the play-in or make it, then wind up drafting outside the top 10. We can't even tank properly this season when we had a ton of injuries early on and a bottom 2 record for a while, you think we're going to tank in a season where Masai and Bobby are fighting for a new contract?

I didn't mean intentionally tank, I meant we'd be bad enough to get another semi-decent pick to work with. Frankly, I think with 60+ games of Ingram and what that will do for the rest of the squad offensively, we'll be better than you expect. But that remains to be seen, certainly.

[ciueli]

No we won't, we'll be good enough to either just miss the play-in or make it, then wind up drafting outside the top 10. We can't even tank properly this season when we had a ton of injuries early on and a bottom 2 record for a while, you think we're going to tank in a season where Masai and Bobby are fighting for a new contract?

I didn't mean intentionally tank, I meant we'd be bad enough to get another semi-decent pick to work with. Frankly, I think with 60+ games of Ingram and what that will do for the rest of the squad offensively, we'll be better than you expect. But that remains to be seen, certainly.

I expect this team to be a play-in team, maybe even a high seed play-in team like 7th or 8th, so that means you must think they are at least a 5-6 seed, right? I see having the 9th highest payroll in the league for that type of team (before even thinking about extending Jak and Barrett) as a negative, I don't understand the positive view. It's a treadmill team that doesn't have a top 20 player let alone the top 10 player we need to be really competitive.

[tsherkin]

I expect this team to be a play-in team, maybe even a high seed play-in team like 7th or 8th, so that means you must think they are at least a 5-6 seed, right? I see having the 9th highest payroll in the league for that type of team (before even thinking about extending Jak and Barrett) as a negative, I don't understand the positive view. It's a treadmill team that doesn't have a top 20 player let alone the top 10 player we need to be really competitive.

I think their specific seeding depends on Ingram's health and the specific strategies and impact with respect to Scottie.

I agree that we aren't looking like a team which will exit the East any time soon without follow-up moves, but that's secondary to me at this point.

[TheRaptor!]

See this is the problem… people get mad when you put limitations on Scottie’s game. I’ve said this so often. And then they act like no one on the board expects Scottie to be a scorer.

I don't speak for everyone, myself it irks me when the limitations are silly like "Draymond". And whoever is expecting him to be a #1 did not read the scouting report.

I’m not sure why people get so excited for a guy shooting 44/26 while given free rein to do whatever he wants basically and has full organizational support.

Again, personally I get excited about a guy who plays great defense and has no problem playing his role.

It’s okay to suggest Scottie is limited. Watch the freaking games and watch him play. It’s not hate it’s called objective analysis.

Ok, so you sustain that Scottie's role and production should be of a Drayming Green? Is that your objective analysis?

You’re the one that needs to relax and trying to place these expectations on players. Even calling him pippen is so delusional, considering pippen is one of the greatest of all time… it also suggests what I keep saying over and over that people don’t really have a proper idea of how to evaluate players skills.

I assumed you'd understand that "Pippen" is a role. But whatever, you seem angry and I'm trying not to do angry.

Uh, do you not see the irony?

Also, Draymond is a hall of famer, Barnes? Remains to be seen.

Barnes is a slightly better offence player and worse defensive player.

Why is this an offensive comparison?

[tsherkin]

The vastus medialis muscle is the most important muscle to strengthen for knee stability. I had a ACL surgery a few years ago and once the wrap came off I was surprised by how much my quad atrophied. My rehab involved doing quarter squats and other quad exercises to stabilize the knee joint.

Interesting. Rehabbing an atrophied muscle makes some sense, though that's somewhat different than adding muscle above and beyond the base amount. That's more like the strength training I was considering at the start.

[Boogie!]

See this is the problem… people get mad when you put limitations on Scottie’s game. I’ve said this so often. And then they act like no one on the board expects Scottie to be a scorer.

I don't speak for everyone, myself it irks me when the limitations are silly like "Draymond". And whoever is expecting him to be a #1 did not read the scouting report.

I’m not sure why people get so excited for a guy shooting 44/26 while given free rein to do whatever he wants basically and has full organizational support.

Again, personally I get excited about a guy who plays great defense and has no problem playing his role.

It’s okay to suggest Scottie is limited. Watch the freaking games and watch him play. It’s not hate it’s called objective analysis.

Ok, so you sustain that Scottie's role and production should be of a Drayming Green? Is that your objective analysis?

You’re the one that needs to relax and trying to place these expectations on players. Even calling him pippen is so delusional, considering pippen is one of the greatest of all time… it also suggests what I keep saying over and over that people don’t really have a proper idea of how to evaluate players skills.

I assumed you'd understand that "Pippen" is a role. But whatever, you seem angry and I'm trying not to do angry.

i need to understand something... if barnes is not a number one option, meaning he's not gonna score and is primarily gonna be a defensive specialist and support player, then why is the draymond comp so offensive to you? if you surround barnes with actual scorers, it means his touches are gonna be less, meaning his scoring output is gonna be down... in fact, draymond actually has an advantage on him defensively, and one can only hope he at least becomes that elite of a defensive anchor because if we conclude he's not really a legitimate offensive option on a winning team, then he better be damn good defensively...

in draymond's best year he put up 14/9.5/7.4/1.5/1.4, shooting 49/39 and was a defensive anchor on a championship team... one can only hope scottie can put up those numbers as a supporting piece and defensive anchor with a lesser offensive role once you surround him with actual scoring talent. but somehow that comparison makes you mad.

[Buff]

i need to understand something... if barnes is not a number one option, meaning he's not gonna score

So only the #1 scores?

and is primarily gonna be a defensive specialist and support player,

Again, so you think Pippen was Draymond? Role-wise?

then why is the draymond comp so offensive to you?

No offensive, seems silly.

if you surround barnes with actual scorers, it means his touches are gonna be less, meaning his scoring output is gonna be down... in fact, draymond actually has an advantage on him defensively, and one can only hope he at least becomes that elite of a defensive anchor because if we conclude he's not really a legitimate offensive option on a winning team, then he better be damn good defensively...

That was what you seem to get wrong, its either you are the main scorer or not a scorer at all? I remind you, Scottie scored 15.3ppg on his rookie season, Draymond BEST year is 14ppg. That playing with Steph and Klay and Durant and... Again, offensively wise is a bad comp so obvious that...

in draymond's best year he put up 14/9.5/7.4/1.5/1.4, shooting 49/39 and was a defensive anchor on a championship team... one can only hope scottie can put up those numbers as a supporting piece

He already put up comparable numbers on that role his rookie year and it was deemed a better season that Cade's. If you do not get that then sure, Scottie will be triple single and we're doomed.

But somehow that comparison makes you mad.

Between you and me, only one is acting mad. I'm just saying it is silly.

[Raps in 4]

Why Masai and Bobby got Ingram.

Read on Twitter

What does this mean? How is this stat calculated? Ingram scoring on 56% TS this season (56% career as well) tells me he isn't a particularly efficient scorer. None of his raw shooting percentages are particularly impressive either, so I'd really like to know what this stat is measuring.

[Scase]

Why Masai and Bobby got Ingram.

Read on Twitter

What does this mean? How is this stat calculated? Ingram scoring on 56% TS this season (56% career as well) tells me he isn't a particularly efficient scorer. None of his raw shooting percentages are particularly impressive either, so I'd really like to know what this stat is measuring.

Honestly, most of the stuff that twitter account throws out is utter nonsense, I wouldn't pay it much mind.

[dballislife]

Why Masai and Bobby got Ingram.

Read on Twitter

What does this mean? How is this stat calculated? Ingram scoring on 56% TS this season (56% career as well) tells me he isn't a particularly efficient scorer. None of his raw shooting percentages are particularly impressive either, so I'd really like to know what this stat is measuring.

i think its because his long jumpers are efficient, his 3 ball is efficient and his ft% is efficient...which i guess gives him good shooting numbers