One of the bigger stories for the Los Angeles Lakers this season has been the development of second-year forward Brandon Ingram. He has become the team’s best all-around player and continues to grow every game.
Ingram impacts the game on both ends of the floor and has all of the looks of the potential franchise player the team hoped they selected with the second overall pick last year. Lakers president of basketball operations Magic Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka view Ingram very highly, and with good reason.
Pelinka recently sat down with Spectrum SportsNet’s Mike Bresnahan for the latest “Connected With…” interview series, and the Lakers GM praised Ingram while adding that he will go to another level once his jumper improves more:
“You know, Brandon Ingram, so there’s a skill, and maybe it’s my own vernacular, but I look at players that can finish above the square. They just have tremendous length to unfold at the basket and almost get up to the top of the square and either dunk it or drop it in. If you look at young players around the league, there’s only a few, the Giannis-type players, the Wiggins, that can really unfold at the basket like Brandon can. So he’s in an elite category. I think clearly the area he’s going to have to develop next is the knock-down shooting. And if he gets that down, it’s scary. He’s a matchup nightmare because he’s a player that can play multiple positions.”
Ingram is already making great strides on that front. He is shooting 38.4 percent between 10-20 feet this season, up from 34.4 percent a year ago.
Additionally, Ingram is hitting 34.3 percent from 3-point range, after shooting less than 30 percent as a rookie.
He is still far more reliable from mid-range than from deep as he is attempting less than two threes per game. With his improvements in finishing at the rim, developing a reliable three-point shot will almost make him unguardable, just as Pelinka said.
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