The New Orleans Pelicans’ season has ended thanks to a first-round sweep by the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the next battle the team faces involves the future of Brandon Ingram.
The blame for how quickly the Pelicans’ season ended doesn’t rest solely on Ingram’s shoulders – losing Zion Williamson to injury certainly doesn’t help – but Ingram’s role in this play-in/postseason cycle It would be fair to say that it was overwhelming.
Ingram is averaging 14.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.3 assists on 45 percent shooting in four playoff games. Add in his two play-in games and those numbers combine for an equally lackluster 16.3/4.7/3.8 on 47.2 percent true shooting.
This stretch raises two big questions: 1) What’s wrong with Brandon Ingram and 2) What does it mean for his future in New Orleans?
Problem 1: Ingram is an odd fit alongside Williamson.
The way I see it, two big issues are contributing to Ingram’s recent struggles. The first is his fit next to the team’s other All-Star (Williamson).
Throughout the season, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of optimizing lineups.through study team like cleveland cavaliers, phoenix sunsand atlanta hawksI have provided an overview. bright line rules Regarding lineup construction.
It is as follows: While a lineup made up of players that work well together is better than just a stack of pure talent, the ideal outcome is to create a lineup that is both cohesive and talented.
If Ingram and Williamson share the same floor, the Pelicans would fall into the least optimal category (just stacking the lineup with pure talent). Ingram and Williamson are both great players, but their skill sets overlap with each other. Both are offensive-minded players who work better with the ball in their hands and can’t space the floor from the perimeter.
I’ll leave Williamson’s shortcomings for another article. In Ingram’s case, although he has made a lot of effort to improve his three-point shot efficiency, his shot release is still slow. That makes it difficult for him to hit a ton of triples (34th percentile of 3-point attempts per 75 possessions, according to Dunks & Threes). In general, his 3-point volume is more important than his 3-point efficiency when it comes to perimeter spacing.
Now, shooting isn’t the only way to be an effective off-ball player. When playing next to an interior presence like Williamson, he can provide value by attacking with a dribble or two off the catch and the sloping floor he creates (tray his Murphy III ). Unfortunately, Ingram isn’t very good at that either. For the most part, he’s a very methodical player who needs multiple dribbles to flow into his spot. This year, Ingram was in the 97th percentile for taking shots after three to six dribbles (per NBA.com).
Ingram and Williamson aren’t much of a threat without the ball in their hands, so teams can slack off on them when they don’t have the ball in their hands and load up on opponents. The issue culminated in the Pelicans vs. Pelicans play-in showdown. los angeles lakers.
The situation got so bad that Ingram had to be ejected early in the fourth quarter and was never heard from again. In that game (the only game the team played together during Ingram’s downturn), Ingram scored just 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting from the floor for a +/–16. After he left the game for the final time, the Pelicans orchestrated a stunning comeback and would have clinched the No. 7 seed if not for Williamson’s tragic hamstring injury.
Looking at the numbers during the season shows this is not an isolated incident. In the season that Ingram and Williamson played together (1,085 minutes), the Pelicans had a net rating of +1.97. Normallylet’s say the star duo wants to compile a net rating of at least +5 (according to PBP stats).
Even more concerning is that the Pelicans’ best high-volume lineup (including both Ingram and Williamson) has a negative scoring differential. According to Cleaning the Glass, when Ingram, Williamson, Herbert Jones, CJ McCollum and Jonas Valanciunas shared the floor (905 possessions), their goal differential was -1.3 (40th percentile). That’s a far cry from what you’d see from a team like this. championship aspirations.
Now, this isn’t all about Ingram and Williamson. Most of New Orleans’ secondary players (with the exception of Murphy) are flawed one-way types (either great shooters who can’t defend or great defenders who can’t shoot). But given the overlap in their skill sets, the type of roleplayer needed to flank them properly will need to be much more versatile than the average roleplayer.
Problem 2: Ingram is flawed as an offensive primary option.
In theory, Ingram’s numbers would look better if he wasn’t sharing the floor with other ball-dominant players. So why has Ingram struggled in the last four games without Williamson?
That’s not to say Ingram is necessarily a bad player in the postseason. In Ingram’s only postseason series to date (Phoenix Suns, circa 2022), he averaged 27 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 6.2 assists while shooting 58.5% from the field. Ingram is an excellent shot maker (he’s in the 85th percentile in midrange efficiency) and an underrated playmaker (he’s in the 92nd percentile in passer-by-basketball rating).
The difference between that series with the Suns and this series with the Thunder is that Phoenix didn’t use a player like Luguentz Dort. Because Dort is ferocious, physically Ingram is a defender and has struggled against these types of stoppers over the years.
Ingram made 11-of-33 shots (33.3 percent) from the floor defended by Dort, according to matchup data from NBA.com.
Ingram’s inability to attack quickly off-ball is also reflected in his process when he’s pulling the strings.Ingram has a hard time making quick decision Playing at pace can lead to offensive possessions becoming a swamp. Look at the difference between an Ingram-led possession (first clip in the montage below) and a McCollum-designed possession (second clip).
Ingram’s game is clearly better when he’s on the floor without Williamson (he scores more points, is more efficient, and has more assists – PBP stats) by). But his pitfalls (physical handling, 3-point shooting, getting to the rim, decision-making speed) limit his improvement as a lead manager.
We saw this last year when Ingram returned from injury in late January. In the last 34 games without Williamson and (mostly) with Ingram, the Pelicans ranked 21st in offensive rating.
How will the Pelicans solve this problem?
In summary, Ingram isn’t the best next to Williamson, and when he’s the number one option, he’s not that good at it. So what will the Pelicans do to solve this?
For me, there are three possible ways to do this. First, the Pelicans could surround Ingram/Williamson with role players that make more sense (basically taking on shooting and rim protection as much as possible). The problem here is that the type of role player they need is what virtually every team is trying to find. Therefore, it is unlikely that they will successfully retool.
Another option is that Ingram or Williamson (or preferably both) become better off-ball players. Ingram is a more likely candidate for this type of development because he has a higher baseline as a shooter. However, given Ingram’s age (he’s almost 27 years old) and the fact that decision-making speed is probably the most difficult skill to improve, this path seems unlikely.
The third (and, in my opinion, most likely) approach is to exchange one of the two stars for a better-fitting item. Williamson is a younger, more talented player, so he’s probably the player New Orleans wants to build around. Therefore, the Pelicans could try to trade Ingram to get more shooting, defense, and secondary playmaking around Williamson.
I know what you’re probably thinking. Why would any team want to trade a player as flawed as Ingram?
Similar to Ingram People like Trae Young And Julius Randle is a very special type of player. I don’t necessarily mean to diss. You can also win with a specific player. There is less room for error when it comes to team building.
Ingram needs a partner in crime who can shoot, defend and generate offense at a high level, but he doesn’t need the ball in his hands to reach his full potential.
Which of these options will the Pelicans end up with? As I alluded to earlier, I think this is a trade route, but I’m not entirely sure. But one thing is for sure: they have a lot of work to do.
