Basketball Story - Since making the All-Star game in the 2019-2020 season, Brandon Ingram has become one of the most overlooked stars in the league.
Last season he took a back seat due to the Zion hype and this year he struggled with injury which hurt his All-Star chances, but still his impact on the Pelicans can't be overstated.
New Orleans may only be 36-46 on the season but without Ingram they were much worse at 7-20(25.9%) which is just a 21 win pace, and with Ingram the Pelicans went 29-26(52.7%) and were winning at a respectable 43 win pace.
In terms of on/off court splits the Pelicans had a +3.3 net rating with Ingram on the court and a -4.9 net rating with him on the bench, the difference between the 8th and 24th best team in the league.
So it's not a total surprise that Ingram has now led New Orleans to a 3-1 record in the play-in and playoffs so far..
At 6 '8" with a ridiculous 7 '3" wingspan and shot creation abilities it was only a matter of time until we saw Ingram on the big stage in the playoffs. He was compared to KD for a reason and he's still somehow just 24 years old so he's not even in his prime yet.
After putting up 30/6/6 to knock off the Clippers in the play-in Ingram had an even bigger game in game 2 vs Phoenix dropping a Lebron-esque stat line of 37/11/9.
There's not many players that can put up numbers like that in the playoffs and it just shows how well rounded Ingram's game has become.
In terms of players listed primarily at SF this season Ingram was 4th in PPG(22.7), 2nd in APG(5.6) and 9th in RPG(5.8).
In that last game vs Phoenix he was really doing it all too, bringing the ball up the court and playmaking, getting to his spots in the mid range (where he shot 46.6% in the season) and using his length to effortlessly shoot over defenders, finishing through contact inside, and hitting fadeaways and catch and shoot threes.
Head coach Willie Green even said he stopped running plays down the stretch and just let Ingram run the show.
Now the Sun's may still be the favorites but with Booker out now things could start to get interesting and Ingram will have a great chance to take the next step and prove himself.
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