Why Brandon Ingram is NBA’s first true test of what defines a max player under new CBA

Brandon Ingram has, for the overwhelming majority of his career, carried significant trade value. Paul George openly said he wanted to join the Lakers in 2017. The Lakers did not offer Ingram coming off of his rookie season. Los Angeles did make him the centerpiece of a mega trade two years later, but it was for a then-26-year-old Anthony Davis, whose value was so significant at the time that ESPN’s Zach Lowe declared that a Davis trade “might be the single most important trade of an NBA veteran since the Lakers acquired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from Milwaukee in 1975.” In 2022, when Kevin Durant was seemingly available for the taking, reports indicated that New Orleans was not willing to send him to Brooklyn.

This wasn’t some flash in the pan. These were three distinct moments in Ingram’s career, each of which carried legitimate reasons to question his value. He barely shot 40% from the field in averaging 9.4 points as a rookie. The season before he was traded for Davis ended due to a blood clot, the condition that ended Chris Bosh’s career. He’d just missed 27 games in the 2021-22 season when the Pelicans held him out of Durant talks. This was a consistent valuation from multiple teams. For the first six or seven years of his career, the NBA treated Ingram like a superstar, or at least someone with the potential to become one. So why does it seem like nobody wants him now?

That might be an exaggeration. It might not be. The Pelicans more or less need to trade him. They just added another shot-creator in Dejounte Murray. They are going to give Trey Murphy a hefty rookie extension and are already paying Zion Williamson the max. Herb Jones is too important defensively to come off of the bench. There isn’t a starting job available in New Orleans anymore except at center, which is currently a gaping hole. The Pelicans will need to trade someone to get a big. Ingram is the logical trade candidate. Even if that center hole didn’t exist, the luxury tax sure does. You can’t pay everybody. Keeping Murray, Murphy, Williams, Jones, C.J. McCollum, Ingram…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/why-brandon-ingram-is-nbas-first-true-test-of-what-defines-a-max-player-under-new-cba/

Author : Sam Quinn

Publish date : 2024-07-10 14:40:32

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