NBA Season Preview 2018-19: Every team’s biggest question
By Ben Ladner
Los Angeles Lakers: How much will Brandon Ingram improve?
Playing next to LeBron changes roles and expectations for players like Ingram, who has many of the tools to be an ideal complementary piece but little of the NBA pedigree. For two years, Ingram has shown flashes here and there, but piecing together consistent stretches has been difficult. That is to be expected from a player of his age, but the addition of James places greater weight on the present. In the first two years of his career, Ingram’s mistakes were learning experiences. Now, they will be magnified and made costlier by the Lakers’ grander ambitions.
James will make Ingram’s – and all of the young Lakers’ – adjustment easier, not just by creating better looks for them but by simply papering over mistakes on his own. Ingram will be allowed to pick his spots, usually against the weaker of an opponent’s perimeter defenders, and find opportunities as they come to him. But in the stacked Western Conference, L.A. will need him to provide more. With fewer shot attempts likely available to him, Ingram will need to become more efficient shot creator and finisher while blossoming into a more dynamic facilitator. It’s unclear if he’ll ever become a stopper on the wing, but he may be thrust into that role at times this year.
Even if true title contention is unlikely this year, Los Angeles will need one of its youngsters to pop in order to maximize the LeBron era. Ingram stands as the most likely candidate to mature into a star, and the sooner that development occurs, the better situated the Lakers will be.