Transcription
Um, just um, just how I can have discipline through uncertainty. Um, staying on task, staying with my teammates, a year of change, a year of change where I came to a new team, and it feels like another, another start for me. What I do best, I'm going to kill him. Anyone that was involved, anybody who profited from it, anybody who opens their eyes at me.
[Music] Love running. What's good, y'all? The hype intro for Brandon Ingram. We got to talk about BI. BI is an awesome basketball player. Sorry if I adjust myself here. And one of the biggest shifts for me, at least, has been in terms of my approach to basketball. Has been understanding basketball from the perspective of analytics, and then ununderstanding basketball from the perspective of analytics. What do I mean by that? Give me one sec here. Let me pull the background up. Okay.
So, when I was a kid, I used to study game. I used to study film breakdowns and tape. I used to study AND1 mixtapes and skill. I was drawn to the most skilled basketball players. And over the last week, I've been doing what is a video that is hopefully going to come out this week, which is the top 40 Raptor peaks of all time, in which I go through the best Raptor seasons of all time. And what this has done is given me a chance to go back and study the game how it used to be. And it gave me an appreciation for players that I really liked, maybe players that I, let's say, missed because the analytics didn't love, because I wasn't paying attention to the analytics, and I realized how great some of the analytics like these players.
But Brandon Ingram is not about the analytics. Brandon Ingram is about the game. And one of the players that consistently has I test FC versus spreadsheet FC all up in arms is Kobe Bryant. And a player that Brandon Ingram has been compared to is Kobe Bryant. And it's taken me a really long time to recalibrate my brain to say, "Okay, analytics are great. Shot quality is great. Efficiency is great, but there's a value to what this guy does. There's a value to what this Kobe Bryant guy did. There, there's a reason why everyone who played against him was so scared of him, why he was so lethal, why he was so incredible in so many clutch situations. And there's a reason why the Raptors were really bad last year, and they don't have anybody who mimics the skill set of a Kobe Bryant."
So today, I want to talk about Brandon Ingram. I want to talk about the problems he solves for the Toronto Raptors. I, I specifically want to talk about his game minus the analytics. I don't want to talk about numbers. I don't want to talk about VORP. I don't want to talk about, you know, box plus minus and true shooting percentage. Y'all can look that up. Last I checked, basketball reference is free. What I want to talk about is what Brandon Ingram does. I want to talk about what Brandon Ingram does on the court, what he does well, what he doesn't do well, and perhaps what the Raptors can do to unlock him fully.
I think we'll start this conversation out with the numbers a little bit. The numbers and the analytics. Y'all know BI is a hell of a scorer. Y'all know that. Y'all know that BI has a very smooth game. Y'all know that Brandon Ingram is a very good uh shooter. There's a lot of things that are going for him. Crafted NBA, which is one of my favorite analytic sites, has offensive similarity scores. And the players that are most similar to Brandon Ingram in terms of their offensive similarity scores, in terms of how they rank offensive players, are Kade Cunningham and Jaylen Brown. Now, Ingram is unique compared to these two players because he is bigger than these two players. Ingram is a legit 6'9, legit. And while he's not nearly the defender that Jalen Brown is, and you know, he may not necessarily be the hyped player that Cade Cunningham is, I think there's a lot in his game that reminds me of Cade.
Demar DeRozan is another guy that analytics tend to hate, but true hoopers and guys who study the game really tend to love. In terms of craft offensive plus minus, Ingram was 86th percentile last year. I think this can go up to 95th, 96th very easily. Load creation is great. His free throw rate wasn't great. His shot quality isn't great. His efficiency is very good for the context that he's in because he takes a lot of really tough shots. We'll talk about the value of tough shots at some point as well, as we look into the film and how Brandon Ingram scores.
There are values to his defense. He is not a non-defender. He is every bit of his 6'9. He is a huge human being. He has a 7 foot 3 wingspan. There's a lot to be said about what he can do with more engagement. He talked about it in his end-of-season uh scrum, you know, his exit interviews where he said, "Look, this team has made it clear that they have a defensive identity. I have no uh desire to mess that up. I got to fit in. That's what that's who they are. That's who I want to be." So, I expect this 36th percentile defensive rating next to a Scotty Barnes and a Yaka Purle, like two really capable, like go through uh the players that he's played with on on the Hornets. Uh, sorry, the Pelicans. It's been a lot of Yonas Valenunis, guys like this. He just hasn't had a great rim protector next to him. He was traded for the best rim protector in Pelicans history, which is Anthony Davis. And he didn't have a long time to play with LeBron James either, right?
So, it's interesting to see like who he was with LeBron, and it's interesting to see who he's been with the Pelicans. It's interesting to see how he sort of shapeshifted in different directions. With Lonzo running the point, he was much, much more of a catch-and-shoot guy, taking a lot of threes. And then, you know, with Zion in, he becomes more of an off-ball guy, does a lot of the off-ball stuff. With Zion out, sometimes their splits are not so great together. He is definitely more of a mid-post offensive driver, you know, doing a lot of tough shot stuff in the mid-range. Not always the most creative offense with Willie Green. And, you know, uh, last year we saw him take a lot more threes. That was positive, right? His three-point attempt rate is still very low, though. And I think this can get up to 40th percentile. In terms of his shot, you know, usage by play type, I expect this to round out so much more. I expect more role man possessions, more cut possessions, more handoffs, more offscreens, more, I expect more spot-ups, but maybe fewer from the mid-range and more from three. The transition frequency is so low for him. I expect him to run and I expect him to be great, and you'll see as we look into the film how great this guy and lethal this guy can be off the ball in transition.
I think he is an incredible finisher in the paint. Again, the reality of Brandon Ingram is not nearly as appealing or as sexy as the theory of Brandon Ingram, but I want to talk about the theory of Brandon Ingram because I think it is the theory of Brandon Ingram that forced Messiah Jur's hand when he pulled the trigger on Brandon Ingram. I think it is the theory of Brandon Ingram that had Bobby Webster saying that this is the most talented guy that we haven't really had a guy like this since since Kawhi Leonard.
So here we have a head-to-head with the guy he's pretty much replaced in the lineup, which is Pascal Siakam. A screen from Zion. Now, you just imagine Scotty Barnes setting the screen. I think Scotty's a better screener than Zion. You could also imagine Yaka Purle doing this. Now, Zion seals here, and which leaves the low man, which is uh Miles Turner. Not always the greatest defending in space. Most bigs are not going to be able to stay in front of Brandon Ingram once he gets past that initial screen, that high screen. And here, Ingram is a nightmare. An absolute nightmare because there's nothing you can do with him here. He can pull right from there. He can take two more steps in. He can beat you off the dribble, and he can go right to the paint. He could, in theory, also draw a foul. He doesn't draw enough fouls. He probably should draw a few more. And I think this will be Darko's greatest challenge is to take all of what Brandon Ingram can do and then focus it. But here you already see the threat. And the threat is crazy because he, he is fully capable of playing with a defender on his hip. Now, he, he gets to his spot. Turner is obviously playing for the drive, kind of hedging his bet here. And boom, pump fake. Oh, play's not done because he's also capable of doing this. I think he is a very underrated athlete. And when you have a 7 foot 3 wingspan, you don't have to jump to the sky to get those dunks.
Now, here you see the handle. Now, Ingram and Scotty Barnes, Ingram and RJ Barrett, there's been a lot made about, oh, these guys all operate in the same place. Yes. But unlike Scotty and unlike, you know, RJ, Brandon Ingram is an extremely diverse offensive player, and the skill set of offensive diversity is what is going to be like the bulk of the end of this discussion. All right. So, here, you know, the handle is just so tight. Unlike RJ, there's not one direction he can go. It's not, oh, all the drives are going left. No, he can go right, he can go left, he can cross you up, he can go behind the back, he can definitely put you on his hip, he can pull up from the mid-range, he can definitely pull up from three. He's a threat from everywhere. You don't have a player like this. You've, you haven't had a player like this since Kawhi, frankly. And that's what made Kawhi so dangerous. That's what consistently draws doubles to Kawhi. That's what consistently made uh Michael Jordan so dangerous. That's what makes all lethal scorers different uh dangerous is they don't have weak zones. Ingram doesn't have weak zones.
Now here he's going to get right to the basket. Defense is too late. And obviously, this is a Utah Jazz. Shout outs to, you know, uh, shout outs to Kelly Olynyk back with the Utah Jazz a year ago. Here, you know, he has uh a really good defender on him. Doesn't matter. Just goes right past him. One of the criticisms that Samson Folk levied in one of his previous breakdowns to Scotty Barnes was that Scotty doesn't really know how to get past his man. Now, that's obviously hyperbole. Scotty beats, Scotty can beat a center off, but yeah, from a standstill, Scotty has difficulty with wings and smaller guards unless they're really pressing up on him. The big difference here is that Scotty, you can take three steps back because he's not a pull-up threat. Ingram is a pull-up threat. So you can't take the three steps back, or he just pulls it. You also can't dig too much into his body because he is not someone who's going to turn the ball over at a re, a relentless rate or a reckless rate. He has a really tight handle. And here Miles Turner once again catches himself off balance. And here Ingram is just going to beat him, and one step, two step, wide strides, and right around. This is going to be like he needs to do much more of this. That was a transition play that just got chopped up. My bad there.
Okay, so here, this was the play that everybody remembers from the game against the Raptors where he went absolutely ballistic. Here he's just going to turn Jordan Nwora inside out, and Jordan Nwora is like spinning circles, and he just beats him. And shout outs to Jonte Porter. He gets dunked on. You know, hedge your bets, hedge your bets, Jonte Porter. Is that, is that in poor taste?
Now here, this is what we need more of from Ingram, right? Which is transition play. You are a long fluid athlete. If nothing else, you have a lot of Dr. J, George Gervin in your game. You could easily do this whenever you want. It's just unfortunately for Brandon Ingram, he just doesn't do it enough. He can get into the open court, and if the Raptors are as good defensively next year as I think they can be, because he is an upgrade defensively on Grady Dick, and that's the guy he's replacing in the starting lineup. If Scotty can take a step up, less of an offensive load, less of a, you know, burden of creation, Immanuel Quickley can come in, you have more cohesion. Jaden Springer could potentially, Colin Murray-Boyles could potentially play some minutes with Ingram, and I think Murray-Boyles and Ingram will have great synergy. You can turn more defense into offense, at which point the fluid athlete, the speed, and frankly, the, the proprioception and just his body control is going to be very dangerous in transition.
Now, once again here, here you are. This is a set defense. Now, right here, if you look at the defensive position, you're probably, you're pretty much walled up, right? You've got a pretty good defender in front of you. You've got uh, you know, Jonas Valanciunas kind of dragging his man down into the paint. That's going to be help. If you, he's going to go right here. I'm assuming he's going to go right. He's going to cross, and then boom, go right, because that's where the help isn't. But there's still a guy there who can technically, and this is where Ingram is so dangerous. At no point during this drive was he not a threat. He could have pulled up. He could have turned around. There's just an endless array of counters. And this is what it comes down to when you're a one-dimensional offensive player like a Scotty Barnes. I don't want to call, I don't want to call Scotty one-dimensional. He's more like two, three-dimensional. Ingram is like 10-dimensional offensively. And I'm not trying to slander Scotty or RJ or anyone. You know, I have a lot of love in my heart, but I'm an honest, I'm an honest content creator, and I'm a good basketball analyst in my opinion, and I'm calling a spade a spade. Brandon Ingram is on another level in terms of offensive talent. Now, that doesn't mean that he always does the right thing, but he can see the right thing.
And while as much as I want to talk about offensive diversity, I also want to talk about court mapping. And here, Ingram is going to show you his court mapping. Right? He is able to escape the double, attack open space, and finish. There really wasn't much better a shot than that, unless you wanted him to fling it out to the corner for the left three. Here, once again, patiently waiting for the Dyson Daniels uh screen, rejects it, and responds to the fact that LeBron is not in a good position to help, and LeBron is not a rim protector. So, boom, there goes the dunk.
Now, again, basketball is a game of split-second decisions, right? We are talking like you don't have a lot of time to make the decision. Go make the decision in this moment. You are facing this situation. The defender who is glued to Dyson Daniels is obviously playing you to receive the screen and go right. The defense is loaded up on the right side. Ingram is leaning to the right side. He is, he's got the ability not only to read the court but also manipulate the court. And right here, it very much looks for whatever reason that he's going to go right. He's got his options open. Again, this is the reason that you want to be offensively diverse because you can actually do both things. You can pull up from here. So, you're a threat. They can't back off of you.
Now, change one element of this. Let's just say Brandon Ingram can't shoot. Let's say Brandon Ingram cannot shoot. Let's say he can't shoot. Forget shoot. Let's say he can't create off his off the dribble. If you can play the percentages and say, if this guy puts the ball on the court, you know, two, three dribbles, he's pretty much sunk. He's dead in the water. He doesn't have the pull-up shot. This defensive coverage completely changes. Now, you don't have to angle this way. You don't have to be this high up. And this drive is gone. But the ability to shoot and the ability to pull up here, as it does with Quickley, is opening up the driving lane. And Ingram, who again, is a good court processor, is able to see this driving lane without projecting his movement. He does still have the option if the defender leans, let's just say the defender plays right, if the defender cheats, he can still go the other way, but his body language, boom, and that's the move right there. That one step past his defender, and it's done. That one decision opens up every other decision.
Now, I don't think this defender uh guarding Zion is able to close this gap. But if he were to close the gap, Ingram also has the passing talent to be able to throw it to Zion. And Zion is also a really smart player. So, more than likely, what's going to happen is if the defender closes the gap and tries to draw a charge, Zion's cutting to the basket because Zion's a very smart cutter, and Ingram is passing it over the defense for an alley-oop. There's really nothing the defense can do once he gets that first step. And that's what I'm trying to say. The Raptors have spent two years learning offensive principles to open up space and open up motion through Grady, through Jaden, through all their shooters, through Scotty and and Jakob who create oodles of space through their screening and off-ball activity. You're going to have more space to work in the Eastern Conference against much weaker competition than you ever had in the West. And you're gonna have a coach who's got a lot more, let's just say, innovation than Willie Green has ever had.
This is what I want to see more of from Ingram. I want to see him crashing the glass more. You got a 7 foot 3 wingspan. Use it. Once again, defense, where are we? Danilo Gallinari cannot possibly even hope to contest this. And again, this is just reading the court. This is just consistently reading the court. This is the ability to play with your defender. Look at how low he is in his stance. That's a 6'9 defender who is head-to-head with a 6'4 defender. And he is going to get, remember that thing I said about how Scotty doesn't get low enough on drives? He doesn't get under his shoulder. He doesn't get into his uh defender's chest. Well, this is what Scotty needs to watch every single day. He needs to watch how Brandon Ingram drives the basketball because right here, this puts the defender off balance. The size and the shooting pocket allows him at any point he's going to have the clearance of all time to pull up for a jumper. The pull-up threat is going to create the pressure, which is going to create the separation, which is going to create the finish, and the incredible finishing talent is what creates the pressure on the jumper. It's just a chain reaction. Any one thing you cannot do offensively is what the defense will play against you. Ingram doesn't have holes offensively. I'm not saying he's a perfect basketball player. I'm saying there's no one individual thing you can say, that thing, make Brandon Ingram do that thing. Like RJ Barrett, make him drive into a congested paint. He'll miss half the shots. Okay. Scotty Barnes, make him pull up going left on a jumper. He's going to, he's probably going to brick it. Scotty Barnes, make him a, make him a deep range jump shooter or or force him, you know, like there's so many weaknesses when you have, when you have weaknesses to scheme. And I, I'll mention very briefly, actually, I just want to get through this and then we'll talk about it more philosophically, but a lot of this comes down to a LeBron James discussion that we had on PC today.
But here, look at this. You know, again, not getting separation, too tight. Defender closes off, playing for this, just turn. Just turn. And right here, what can't he do? Look at those strides. He's going to get right to the front of the rim. How do you stop this? Once again, transition off-ball here. Ingram decides. Now, how many times do you think Scotty and Ingram can pull this play off in a game? As many times as they want, man. Anytime. As many times they want. Boom. Crossover. Gets low. Rip through and pass. He's a great passer. You know, this is something that I used to reject. I didn't think Brandon Ingram was a great passer. Even when I've often called Brandon Ingram one of my favorite players. If y'all OGs of this channel, you know, about two, three years ago, I made a comparison between Brandon Ingram and Pascal, and I, I said Ingram was by far, by far, by far, by far the better player. Even as high as I was on Ingram, I wasn't quite clued in to how good a passer he is. Since he's come over to the Raptors, I went back and I watched the last two years of, I've watched almost all of his games from New Orleans. I promise you, this guy is a very underrated passer. That was a good connective pass there.
Here, Ingram is going to make this pass. And look at that. 6'9 with a 7 foot 3 uh wingspan. Really tall, tall standing reach. Nobody can block this passing angle. He always has an opening to the pass. I'll mention something else. Ingram might be listed at 6'9, but if you look at his anatomy, where does his, where do his shoulders sit? When you see him standing next to a Kevin Durant who is a full 7 feet tall or Towns, his shoulders are almost on par with theirs. Now, last I checked, you do not play basketball with your head. Okay? No one has ever played basketball with their heads. Ingram is the opposite of someone like a Chris Bosh where it's all neck, right? Ingram is like no neck. Ingram is like his shoulders, like if you, I don't want to say decapitate the guy, but if you take the head off, he has the body pretty much anamorphically, is it anthropomorphically? Anthropomorphically. I'm not going to get this word right. He has the body of a center and the skill sets of a guard. Last I checked, this is what usually gets you picked first overall. Nobody can block this passing angle. There's not one guard with arms long enough to block that passing angle. And he is extremely smart anatomically. I don't think it's anatomically, but that does make sense. Simple passes. Uh, you know, Jakob being such a good finisher, Ingram being such a dynamic playmaker, Scotty being such a dynamic off-ball player, the three of these players can create probably one of the top two to three front courts in the Eastern Conference. They have the opportunity to do that. What the bench does, what the backups do, what the back court does, that's a completely different situation.
But, and this is the catch-and-shoot stuff, right? He's going to do a lot of this. He is a 40% three-point shooter on catch-and-shoots. I think he can get up to 42, 43 if he was a little bit more open with a little bit less defensive attention. And here, you know, you can see it. It's all over. He's not getting shots from the left corner, the right corner. Do me a favor. Go and Google Brandon Ingram shot chart. You see how diverse the whole thing is. There's no, oh, he's going to be a right block merchant. No, he can do it from the left. He can do it from the right. Left wing, right wing, above the, above the break, in the paint. He does it all, and there's really not a weak zone. I keep hammering home that point again. Boom. Over a double. Doesn't bother him. Now this time, boom. You think you could play him one shoulder or the other? You really can't. He has both. Once again, little catch-and-shoot there coming off motion. Here, Dennis Schröder just doesn't get a hand up in time. This is dangerous. This is what expands space. Brandon Ingram is a spacing cheat code when he wants to be. When he is not playing with the basketball and he's not forcing awkward mid-range twos, fadeaways, and holding on to the basketball, which he obviously will not be able to do in the Raptors offense, otherwise the offense falls apart. I think people have drastically misread how the Raptors want to use Brandon Ingram. I don't think they're abandoning their entire philosophy for Brandon Ingram. I think what he does is he fills their biggest void, which is they don't have a great isolation scorer.
Okay, here once again, Ingram space game on the line, and this is something that you really can't capture with the analytics, can you? How dangerous are you and how useful are you with three to four seconds on the shot clock? Comes down to your offensive diversity. If you don't have weak zones, I can't really play you with the shot on, with the shot clock on my side. Almost everyone's percentages go down when there's a short clock situation. Who was the one player for the Raptors, I say two years ago, who fared pretty decently in those situations? It was Gary Trent Jr. Why? He had weak, he had fewer weak zones than most of the players around him. That's why. Boom. Here, Alperen Şengün double team. Now, here obviously, you know, short clock situation, you want to take the shot. If you had a little bit more time, maybe fling this out to CJ McCollum. Don't force an awkward fadeaway. But here, good defender, Derek Lively, too slow to guard him, really long. But once again, you see Derek Lively, who is a legit almost 7-footer. You see Brandon Ingram, who's pretty much a guard in a 6'9 body. Who looks bigger? Who looks bigger here? I'll rewind this [ __ ] play. Who looks bigger? I know who's bigger. Tell me who looks bigger on the court. That's a center. Shoulder to shoulder, they're pretty much the same size. This is insane. Rudy Gay 2.0 is [ __ ] insane. I, I'll actually give you a little uh cheat into uh the Toronto Raptors top 40 seasons. I got down to 65 seasons, and I'm now weeding it up to 40. This is top individual seasons. I promise you Rudy Gay's name did not come in the first 65 names. Please don't ever compare Brandon Ingram to Rudy Gay. It is crazy to compare these two. Rudy Gay wishes he could do half this [ __ ] He can't.
Okay, here we go. Like, come on, bro. What the hell are we even doing here? He just dropped the defender. Like, what is going on? Look at this pass. And then he's going to. And this is the off-ball stuff. Very often Brandon Ingram can be a little bit lazy off the ball. I think Darko is going to be, I think that's going to be Darko's biggest challenge is how can you unlock Brandon Ingram off the ball? Boom. Just get up, man. You, you're not going to stop this guy here. Short clock situation, late clock game, you know, boom, cannot be stopped.
Okay, let's talk about where this even comes from and why I'm talking about this. Today on the panel, we were having an extensive debate about 2007 LeBron James. Let's do some quick housekeeping before we get into the philosophy of it all. Uh, please give this video a like if you appreciated that little film breakdown there. Shout outs to KP, new member. Shout outs to you, sir. Longtime channel member. Thank you so much. Now, an official channel member, longtime subscriber. I want to give a big, big shout out to our five VIP members, Susan Garrett, Springer, Stanley Curran, Pepperjack, and our newest VIP member, Karen Hall. Thank you so much uh for uh for becoming a channel member. I just want to let you all know that YouTube has a new incentive. I have kept uh I have pulled off from, I've held off on opening channel memberships forever. I didn't see the value in it. I didn't know why I should do it. I didn't really understand what I could offer. Now I have some time. Thought about it. I know what I can offer. YouTube did a really cool thing uh for select content creators. Now I know a lot of content creators that didn't get this deal, but I got this deal. They give you a set amount to launch memberships, and then they give you a certain amount for every single member who signs up. So, you might be subscribing to the $3.49, 49 tier, but the minute you subscribe, YouTube is paying me $30 for every subscription. So, I hope you'll bear with me as I push memberships. Most of the people I know got $5 per member. What me getting $30 per member shows me is that YouTube finds this channel very valuable. Why they find it valuable is probably because they think this community is very dedicated. So, I take it as a vote of confidence from YouTube that I'm doing something right. I also take it as a vote of confidence that we are doing something right. So, it's pretty cool. Thank you guys so much uh for all of the uh are we flexing Starbucks now? Uh, so, couple of months uh I want to say a couple months ago, I was at a birthday party, and uh I was not feeling well after that birthday party. So, my friend sent me home with a reusable Starbucks cup, and it's just become my favorite cup now. So, you are crazy if you think I'm buying Starbucks every day. Yeah. Uh, WSO, this channel is valuable objectively. Troy Knights, extremely valuable. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it. Uh, Tariq saying, "Were you drunk at the party?" I felt a little bit sick. I'll leave it there at that. I uh ate something that did not uh probably shouldn't have eaten, but yes.
Anyways, uh the panel today, we were on the panel. We were talking about LeBron in 2007. And LeBron James in 2007 went through an amazing, amazing playoff run. He was 22 years old in 2007, and he carried a team where his best teammate was basically Jalen Rose, Booby Gibson. I don't know who his best teammate was. This is pre-Kyrie. This is no Kevin Love. To all of you who started watching basketball in 2019, bear with me. 12 years before the Raptors won a championship, LeBron James, a 22-year-old, took his team to the NBA Finals and faced the San Antonio Spurs. That Spurs team, headquartered by Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, the legendary Tim Duncan, who many think is one of the five greatest players of all time, and definitely one of the five to 10 greatest defenders of all time. They shut LeBron down. He averaged 22, 7, and 7 on terrible shooting splits. And one of the conversations today was, would Kobe Bryant have done better? Would a 22-year-old Kobe Bryant have done better at floor-raising a terrible roster in that situation? And most people seem to think he would. And why was that? Kobe Bryant has never been more efficient than LeBron James ever. He's a tough shot maker, but for whatever reason, his percentages don't fluctuate as much when he went up against really great defenses. LeBron has had, prior to 2011, where he just became a way better jump shooter, he's had so many instances where a really, really difficult defense or a scheme has just made him less effective. Kobe doesn't have, there's not a lot of game plans to stop a Kobe Bryant.
Now, when I first got on the panel, they asked me for my top 10, and I said Kobe Bryant was not a top 10 player. I said this because even though I grew up a very big Kobe Bryant fan, even though he put up 81 points on my favorite team, the Toronto Raptors, as I studied the game through the lens of analytics afterwards, all the analytics were telling me that Kobe Bryant was an inefficient, inefficient shot-chucker. He wasn't as efficient as Jokic is today. He wasn't anywhere close to as efficient as Shaq. But why is it that Shaq never really won without a Kobe guard? I mean, he won, he went to the finals with Penny. He got to the finals four times with Kobe. Then he got to the finals with D. Wade. Why is it that the greatest force, the most dominant player of all time, never really won without that type of player on his team? And those of you who don't remember Penny Hardaway, 1994, 1995, Penny was a problem. People were comparing him to Michael Jordan. Why is it that Shaquille O'Neal always needed that dominant three-level scorer next to him? Well, it's because of how the basketball court is structured and ultimately how diverse scorers work. When diverse scorers like Brandon Ingram, and I, and I, I make this comparison loosely. Please don't ever come back and tell me like, "Hey, Rob, uh, did you say Brandon Ingram was Kobe Bryant?" No, I'm not saying Brandon Ingram is Kobe Bryant. He's Kobe-esque, though. He's Kobe-esque. He has Kobe-isms. Kawhi has Kobe-isms. Kawhi is a much more efficient player than Kobe for a multitude of reasons. Part, part of it is just physics. He's just stronger than Kobe Bryant. He's got longer arms, bigger hands than Kobe Bryant. One of, um, in Phil Jackson's interview, one of the interviews, he said the difference between Kobe and Michael, he said it was the hands. Kobe had small hands. Michael had huge hands. Kawhi has bigger hands than Michael Jordan. Bigger hands allow for more ball control. There's a lot of things. Wingspan, physical advantages. I am convinced of one thing. No one single player in my lifetime made more of what they had, God-given, than Kobe Bryant. Probably the most maximization of your skill set ever. Maybe not maximization of your teammates, maybe not maximization of your situation, but definitely in terms of whatever a 6'6 athlete with so-so athleticism could do, Kobe did.
Demar is another one. These are all diverse scorers. There are holes with Demar, though. He's, he was not nearly as great a passer early in his season. So, again, like early in his career, Demar wasn't the greatest passer. He wasn't a great three-point shooter. His shooting mechanics did not lend him, like that slingshot shot he's got, just doesn't lend itself to shooting from beyond. Demar has the problem that a lot of young kids have, which is he kind of throws the ball at the basket. This is why, you know, at a youth level, you try to tell kids to play with a smaller ball so they never get into the habit of that flick, flick away shot. Demar has some bad mechanics that don't lend themselves to, Demar will never be Klay Thompson from three. There's no chance at this point in his career that he's going to morph into a great shooter. Ingram is a great shooter. He's a very good shooter. And at 6'9, he can be an unstoppable shooter. Ingram has a lot of Demar DeRozan, a lot of Kobe Bryant, a lot of Kawhi in him. There's a lot of that stuff in him, but it's never quite materialized to that level of volume, that level of health, that level of domination.
What is missing from Brandon Ingram? Well, I think what it reminds me of is something that Darko said about Scotty Barnes last year, which is to say, you know, if you can do one thing, you're probably a good role player. If you can do two things, you might be a star. If you can do three things, you're an MVP. And if you could do more than three things, you're probably going to be in Europe. And I think Ingram suffers from the crisis of too many options. When you can do everything, nothing's really a bad shot, is it? There's no bad shots for Brandon Ingram. Pull-up three from 28 feet, not a bad shot. Running hook shot through the lane, not a bad shot. Turnaround midi from the m, uh, from the high post, not a bad shot. Drive to the lane, not a bad shot. Crossover, backstep, uh, you know, step back, uh, two-pointer from 22 feet, not a bad shot. Go left, go right, not a bad shot. He doesn't have bad shots. There are no bad shots. And so, when there are no bad shots, what's a great shot? You can't even tell. I think Ingram needs guidance. So, that's the first thing that I think the Raptors have to do with Brandon Ingram is they have to cut out some of the fat from his game. It's not that you can't do it, it's we prefer you not do it. We need to structure your offense so you have a clear pecking order of what we want you to do. We do want you above the break launching from three. We do want you operating in the middle of the zone. We want you operating at the nail so Scotty can fan out. But also when Scotty's there, we don't want you at the top of the key or above the break kind of camping out waiting for a kickback. Go fan out to the corner. When a shot goes up, we want you crashing the glass. When Scotty's on the left block and your defender falls asleep, we do want you to back cut the defense to create more pressure. Ingram can do so many things, especially with two plus-sized playmakers with him and Scotty and Jakob Pöltl. This is never something he's enjoyed.
The other thing I'll say is it's somewhat underrated, but I think you can say that every single performance, so if a player plays 82 games in a season, those are 82 performances. And in those 82 performances, it will matter, three things will matter fundamentally the most: Who were your teammates? Who was your opponent? And what did you do about it? That's it. Who were your teammates? I think Ingram has better teammates in Toronto than Zion because Zion is definitely the most talented player he could play with. But in terms of fitting around Ingram, in terms of the players I would want around him, especially if he does a lot of heavy lifting for the second unit with Precious Achiuwa and Grady Dick and Jaden Springer, I really like that second unit with Ingram. So, there's value to the offensive players around him. Even when you look at a guy like an Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, the drivers, Ingram can do a lot with the pieces that he has. If Barnes can be a good shooter this year, even more so. But if Barnes can't be a good shooter, well then Ingram can fill in. I think they'll have to interplay. The point here is I don't think Ingram has played with a center as good as Jakob in a really long time. And I think that that high-low thing that he, that they can do can be very, very important. I think their pick-and-roll game can be amazing because Jakob is incredible at screens and Ingram is absolutely deadly. Jakob is a great finisher. It is a pairing made in heaven. These two are going to have basketball synergy 100%, and him and Sandro Mamukelashvili, that's also great. Him and Scotty is also great. I have some concerns about how the starting five all melts together, but it won't be because of Ingram. If nothing else, Ingram is the most malleable, complete basketball player in that starting five. He is the one who can never get into anyone's way. He's the one who can never really compromise spacing. I think what the Raptors are asking him not to do, I don't think the Raptors are asking him, "Hey, Brandon Ingram, can you please not be a spacing problem for us?" Him being on the court is a spacing solution. I think what the Raptors need from Brandon Ingram is instead of not just being a not-spacing problem, can you be a spacing cheat code? And the cutting and the off-ball activity and the improvement of the shoot, shooting quality and increasing the driving rate, being being more prone to taking some contact at the rim, slowing the game down, getting to the free throw line. These are all ways that Brandon Ingram can really help the Raptors.
To the point of like, what do the Raptors need to fix? I think that sort of settles what the Raptors need to fix. What can Ingram do for the Raptors? I think he can be an All-Star. I legitimately believe this guy could average 24 points, eight rebounds, six assists next year. I don't know if he's going to average that. I don't think the Raptors are going to be so catered to Brandon Ingram offense, but it matters to me that he can do that. It matters to me that he can do that because one thing you'll notice with a lot of really good teams is there's a lot of players who do less than they can. Go look at the greatest teams of all time that you can think of. Whether you're talking the Magic-Kareem Lakers of the '80s, whether you're talking about the Jordan Bulls of the '90s, whether you're talking about the San Antonio Spurs of the 2000s, the Lakers at the turn of the century, whether you're talking about the Golden State Warriors, or whether you're talking about the Heat, or if you're talking about LeBron's super team, or even if you're looking at the Kyrie-Harden, you know, Durant Nets that didn't quite do anything, or whether you're talking about the Harden-Westbrook-Durant trio in in uh OKC. What was consistent with those teams is there was always a player who was doing a little less than they could fully do, but they didn't lose the ability to do that. Kyrie Irving doesn't need to go out and average 30 when he's playing with LeBron James. But that doesn't mean that you can guard him like a player who can't guard, who can't score 30. Because the minute you let him, let him see that pocket of daylight, he's going to go for 30. He's going to go for 40 in the Finals. That danger is what unlocks your offense. The ability to do more. Ingram will always be able to do all of these amazing things. But for 10 to 12 possessions, can you just camp in the corner, catch and shoot like your O'Shea? Can you just cut to the basket like your O'Shea? You're never going to be O'Shea. The defense will always respect you like your All-Star Brandon Ingram, super game Brandon Ingram, but you don't have to do everything all the time. It's the same thing with Scotty. Now, Scotty can do a lot less offensively than Ingram. He's a much better defender than Ingram, which is why I think he's still the Raptors' best player, but offensively, Scotty would be your second or third most talented offensive player next year. But Scotty does have things he can do offensively at a high rate. I think he can be a good catch-and-shoot shooter. I do think Scotty's best bet to find a dominant zone will be that mid-range shot. Now, it's not the most, you know, appetizing for the analytics FC, but Scotty has a lot of advantages working in the mid-post. Ingram can work off of that beautifully. They can work off each other. There's this can be a mix-and-match situation.
But the most important thing that Ingram can do for Scotty Barnes is the same thing that Pascal Siakam did for Scotty Barnes. He can suck away the best defender. He can take away some pressure. He can open up a little bit more space for those driving angles. Everything was so congested for the Raptors last year. How often was Scotty doubled, tripled? How often did he drive into a paint where no one had vacated? How often? Very often. It was too easy. With Ingram, it's not so easy anymore.
Brandon Ingram, and I want to, I want to just, you know, not to dance all over the place here. I want to really bring this conversation back to scoring diversity. I don't think that analytics properly value two things: scoring diversity and defensive versatility. Analytics love a guy who can block shots. Analytics love a guy who can rack up deflections and steals. Analytics love guys who can shoot threes at a high clip. Analytics love guys who can finish in the paint. I don't know how much analytics value the guy or devalue the guy who can only finish in the paint and only finishes in the paint, or the guy who can only shoot threes and only shoots threes. I don't think analytics properly devalue those guys. I don't think your eye test completely devalues guys who have limited scoring upside and scoring diversity. Everything I described about Brandon Ingram about the, he can go left, he can go right, he can do this, he can do that, whatever, whatever, whatever. You know, he can finish in the paint, he can finish, you know, off two feet, off one foot. All the skill set stuff that I say with Brandon Ingram, the things that he can do for your basketball team on the basketball court from three, from mid-range, everything. What if he just couldn't shoot from three and then just didn't take threes? Would the analytics properly evaluate how his inability to shoot threes impacts the defense, impacts his teammates, impacts his coverages, impacts his efficiency, impacts the game?
plan? I don't think they do. Analytics didn't love Derrick Rose. Analytics didn't love Kobe Bryant. Analytics didn't love Allen Iverson. But the analytics really love Danielle Marshall and Patrick Patterson. There's something to be said for that, right?
There's a very small number of things on a basketball court that Danielle Marshall can do, but he does them so well. Michael Jordan and LeBron James differentiate from Kobe Bryant in one key factor. They have a dominant zone. Kobe doesn't have the dominant zone. Kobe doesn't have that dominant skill. Kade doesn't have a dominant skill right now either. Just so we're clear. Scotty doesn't have a dominant skill right now either. But Michael Jordan, Nikola Jokic, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, they have dominant zones.
What separates a Jordan from a Shaquille O'Neal is outside of those dominant zones, there's counters. Shaq, you can't stop him. He gets to the front of the paint, you're sunk. You throw three defenders, immediate gravity. He's probably still going to get the ball. He's probably still going to get the shot up. You're sunk. But consider a player like an Eddie Curry, who had a lot of the physical girth and size and whatever Shaq did, but nowhere near the level of command of his body, balance, all that stuff. Eddie Curry was not a good player. Eddie Curry got paid like a good player because they wanted to see something that wasn't there.
When you go through history, you start to see that scoring diversity, which is to say a player who can do 25 to 30 different things on the basketball court offensively, but doesn't do any one of those things exceptionally well. Or maybe there's a thing that he does exceptionally well, but he doesn't do it often enough because his game hasn't been honed in enough. That's the player that gets undervalued. Brandon Ingram is that player because Brandon Ingram, unlike some of the players I've mentioned, does have a dominant zone. Brandon Ingram can be a dominant paint player. Brandon Ingram can finish over anybody. Brandon Ingram is, if he gets a little bit stronger and a little bit more forceful pushing it, he can definitely get to the front of the rim and his percentages there are incredible. Ingram has a dominant skill. Ingram can be, he can be so much better.
Pascal Siakam is a great example. Siakam's game was all over the map in Toronto. I think we all saw it. It was a very unfocused game. There's a lot of handling the basketball, a lot of, you know, dribble, dribble, pound, twist, turn, step back, you know, force awkward shots. And his percentages suffered for it. Without Kawhi, the percentages dipped and dipped and dipped. He was no longer a star player or a superstar player. He was nowhere near that level of efficiency that guys like LeBron and Kawhi would consistently get you, 60, 61, 62, 63% true shooting. He wasn't getting there. Giannis gets to 63, 64, 65 true shooting. If your star is going 54 true shooting, what hope do you have to win a basketball game that lasts 100 possessions? You have no chance.
With Ingram, his efficiency has been a little bit like Siakam's as well. It's been underwhelming at times because you see the talent, you see him on a good day, and you say, "Why can't this guy get to 63% true shooting?" There's nothing wrong with his game. Everything my eye is telling me is saying this guy should be a 60-plus percent true shooting guy. But then he'll force a really stupid shot. He'll force a shot over a double team where he could have made a pass. There'll be a shot where, you know, he just has no business taking that shot early in the clock, but he does. There's a shot where he could get to the front of the paint, but he decides to settle for the mid-range. These are habits. These are bad habits. Ingram has bad habits. So that's the breakdown on Brandon Ingram.
R.J. Barrett had a lot of bad habits, too. You know, when he got to Toronto. Pascal Siakam had a lot of bad habits when he went to Indiana. R.J. solved a lot of his bad problems in Toronto. We cut out some of the most inefficient zones in his game and made him a lot more role-player conducive. We cut out the fat in his game. Quickly has seen a similar metamorphosis where we want to see him getting more threes. We want to see him taking fewer floaters, getting more directly to the basket. Every player who's come into Toronto has had Darko Rajakovic radically shift their shot diet. Scotty Barnes is another player whose shot diet has shifted radically under Darko Rajakovic.
Now, when I mentioned Pascal Siakam with the Indiana Pacers, look at his efficiency. Now, he is north of 60%. How? Why? Well, when you cut out some of the fat and you focus only on the zones that you are actually good at, we can actually hone in your game using analytics and we can say, "Okay, we don't want you to become one-dimensional, but we don't want you to become 30-dimensional. Here are the four play types and here are the order of operations in terms of where you're going to go to what. And we're going to put some great spacing around you. So, you're going to have more space to work with than you ever did in Toronto with the likes of Khem Birch, you know, and Scotty Barnes and Thaddeus Young occupying the court." Now, Siakam can get into the 60%, 61% zone, and that's exactly where he's been. He's been a much better three-point shooter. He's been dominant as hell in the post. These are his zones, and he can do really well in those zones.
I think Ingram is better than Pascal Siakam. My eye test tells me he's better. The analytics tell me I'm wrong. But my eye test tells me when I watch Pascal Siakam and I watch Brandon Ingram, and I've watched them for a really long time, Ingram is the better player. Siakam is the better defender. Ingram is the better offensive player. Ingram is the better shooter. Ingram is the better passer. Ingram is the better offensive player. So why do the percentages never reflect that? I think they will this year. So that's the first thing. I think that that honing that entire game, tightening it up will make him extremely more efficient.
Now, what about when you get into the late clock? This is where the scoring diversity comes in. When you get Scotty Barnes into a late-clock situation, his counters are limited. When you get R.J. Barrett or Immanuel Quickley into a late-clock situation, their counters are limited. None of them have the complete three-scoring package that Ingram does. So with Quickley, there's the lack of mid-range shot that is always going to limit it. There's the size. So even though he has that deep shooting potential as a, you know, long-bomb threat, there's always going to be some element of, "Okay, but we can just run him off the line and close it off before he gets into the paint." And in that zone, his shooting mechanics do not lend themselves well to being a good mid-range pull-up jump shooter. He shoots a flat ball.
With Scotty, the handle and the driving angles that he takes are so slow. He's not the quickest twitch athlete. So, there aren't a ton of counters. He sort of bully-balls his way, which slows down the offense. His offense is slow. So more than likely, if he draws a double team, he's probably going to pass. But if he doesn't get double-teamed, the entire attack is too slow. It's not one cross, two steps to the paint. The defense has so much time to load up on a Scotty Barnes drive because the drive is too slow. Right? I'm not saying you can't get better. Scotty will get better. I'm saying the Scotty Barnes that we've seen to date has a limited number of things he can do, which is why a lot of people think Scotty is more of a role player. I think he's going to be a star. I think he's going to be a really good star, but it's not going to come in the same way Ingram is. Scotty's going to be a star because he has dominant zones. Ingram is a star for the exact opposite reason. He's not a star because he has dominant zones. He's a star almost in spite of the fact that he has dominant zones. He's a star because he has scoring diversity.
So again, in the 8 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 seconds situation, Scotty can be stopped because you can press into the handle. The handle isn't tight enough. You can back off the shot. The quick twitch, there's a counter. There's an immediate counter which stops the entire attack from happening. And so more than likely what Scotty needs to attack is a screen, or he needs an advantage, or he needs to attack off the ball like an Anthony Davis, or he needs to catch the ball on the block so that he can take one, two dribbles and turn around. That's okay. This is okay. This is a pathway. There's a pathway there to being a 25-point game scorer. No problem. But it's not going to come the way it does for Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant's like an eel. Ingram's like an eel.
So now, you know, I've talked about, you know, stopping Quickley in that short-clock situation, stopping Scotty in the short-clock situation. It's not a complicated defensive scouting report. Try stopping Ingram in the short-clock situation. You can't. If he catches a 35 feet from the basket, he can take two dribbles and pull up and it's still an okay shot. It's not a great shot. Could be a better shot. He can also make the pass from that situation. He can catch it going towards the basket and he's a great finisher. He can probably catch it coming off a screen, coming up above the break, probably take two steps and pull up from the elbow. This is what you didn't have last year. You had nobody who could hit a shot in these situations. It might be crazy to say the closest thing you had to someone who could actually, in theory, hit a shot like this would be Grady Dick, but Grady Dick's percentages were terrible. He wasn't a good enough three-point shooter to justify super high volume three-point attempts. He wasn't the greatest paint finisher. He has nowhere near the athleticism, length, size of an Ingram. He's nowhere near the passer of an Ingram.
A lot of people have incorrectly assumed that the Raptors have tried to replace R.J. Barrett with Brandon Ingram. I disagree. Some people who fall on the other side say, "Well, this is an indictment on how the Raptors feel about Scotty Barnes because Bobby Webster let slip, Scotty likes to pass and Ingram likes to shoot." That is also a massive, massive stretch. They have no intentions of moving off of Scotty. In fact, they love this pairing. Who they've actually replaced with Ingram, believe it or not, is Grady Dick. Both directly and indirectly, the skill set, if you watch Grady Dick last year play basketball, there's a lot of off-ball stuff. There's a lot of throw-ahead dribble, try to dive into the paint. Everything Grady did last year and was ineffective at, Ingram can do and be very effective at. He is 80 to 90, maybe 180 to 200% better defensively while not being a great defender. I think he's a better catch-and-shoot shooter right now, which is crazy to say, but we can say this skill set is close. He is so much better at the mid-range stuff that Grady was doing. If you again, if you don't believe me, go back and watch the first 10, 12, 18 games of the Raptor season and go look at how they were using Grady. If you want an indication of anything, that is, in my opinion, at least part of how they plan to use Brandon Ingram with some isolation peppered into there.
Do not think, and I, you know what, bookmark this video and come back to me and tell me I was wrong, you know, three months from now when we actually see this all play out. The Raptors are 40 days away from their season. By the way, if you think the Raptors have brought in Brandon Ingram to be their superstar, if you think Brandon Ingram is here to completely radically shift the way the Raptors play basketball, you are sadly mistaken. If you think they're just going to dump it into Ingram and we are back to the Pascal Siakam show, you are wrong. Because the very same Pascal Siakam that he is replacing was also asked to stand in the corner. Brandon Ingram is going to play a different brand of basketball than he has ever played before in his life. Just like R.J. did, just like Scotty is, just like IQ is, just like Grady is. Believe me, if you watch Grady in Kansas, nothing that he's doing in the NBA mirrors. Well, 75% of what he's doing in the NBA right now is completely distinct from what he was doing in Kansas. Darko likes to do this. Ingram is the most talented player, talented offensive player Darko has ever had the chance to coach as a head coach. Not a stretch, not a lie. With that talent comes great responsibility, but also great opportunity. I think Brandon Ingram is going to be unlocked completely in Darko's system. I think he's going to be the most efficient he's ever been. I think he's going to be an All-Star. I think he's going to buy in defensively. If he doesn't become a good defender, I don't think he's gonna become a good defender. I think he'll become an okay defender. I think he'll be a team defender who participates. The only question mark right now for Brandon Ingram in Toronto is will he be healthy. That is the only one. That's the only one. That's the only question I have. Whether he's going to buy in is not a question for me. He asked to be here. He wanted to be here. He got paid to be here. He's happy to be here. He's buying into the vibes. He said all the right stuff. I've heard through the grapevine that he's very, very happy with the direction the Raptors are going. Cool.
I'll also point to the elephant in the room, which is that there are reports, there are reports that the Toronto Raptors interviewed a lot of people before eventually settling for the lateral or, you know, somewhat uneventful move of hiring Bobby Webster to be the head of basketball operations. Allegedly, what came out a lot of these talks was that the people who were interviewing for the president job weren't enamored with the idea of the Raptors' past few decisions. There's also been a lot of kerfuffle, if you will, that Bobby Webster himself, the guy who is now in charge, wasn't all that sold on Brandon Ingram to begin with. If the first thing is true, which, you know, I have no real reason to believe it's not true, then good riddance. If there's a president who was out there who's just like, "You know what, I'd love this job, but that Brandon Ingram guy really scares me off this job." Well, you know what? You don't know basketball. So, that's great. The second thing is the Bobby Webster stuff has been massively overplayed. I think whether Masai was the pushing force for Ingram, I hope someone asks Bobby Webster if he pushed back against it because the reporting became, "Some members of the front office weren't completely sold on Brandon Ingram." To Bobby and Masai were diametrically opposed on, you know, Brandon Ingram. There was also some little murmur that Bobby Webster kind of wanted to keep Pascal Siakam. I can't imagine a person who wants to keep Pascal Siakam and doesn't want to trade for Brandon Ingram. So if he falls on both sides, I'm very confused. Completely confused.
If there was a disagreement between Masai and Bobby on Ingram, my money would say it was on the asking price. I would assume maybe Bobby Webster thought, "Let's wait till the offseason and try for a sign-and-trade at which point they'll have less leverage." They don't have another option. Whereas Masai said, "Let's pay the first-round pick. We don't care about it and let's get him in the system early. So we can get this extension done with and we can build up the team chemistry." I think that would be the only real tangible thing that you can say. And if you want to feel a little bit better about paying a first-round pick for Ingram, Kelly Olynyk was not worth $11 million and the Pelicans ate that salary. That's really what you paid the first-round pick for. I think half that first-round pick was to get off Kelly Olynyk's money, which you signed him to. And Olynyk's still on the books. Olynyk's, you know, he wasn't expiring. I think if Olynyk was expiring, you would have been able to get away with a couple of seconds. But because he wasn't, and because they didn't want R.J. Barrett in this trade, I think that's what really held it up. But I'd be very curious because I think I think Bobby Webster was high. And you know what? Ownership has said, "You know what? You're high on this guy. You're high on this core. You're high on Scotty Barnes. You're high on what we're doing. We're okay with what you're doing. Go show us that this works."
Ingram was playing in the Western Conference last year. Remember that thing that I said about, you know, the three things that determine every performance across an 82-game sample is number one, who you play with. And I factored in that he's playing with better talent. The second part of that was who do you play against. Ingram will be playing against much easier competition in the Eastern Conference. Much. He's going to have a feast. I don't think it's a stretch to say he's one of the 15 best players in the Eastern Conference. I actually think that's a certainty. He will be one of the 15 best players in the Eastern Conference. And I think Scotty's one of the 15 best players in the conference. You have two of the best players in my opinion. You have two of the 14 best players in this conference, and there's 15 teams in this conference. Unless your bench is absolutely disgusting, unless your health luck is absolutely destroyed, you should win 40 wins going away with this team, tough schedule in the beginning aside.
"Hotline Bling" is a good song. Said, "I'm riding with Brandon Ingram. Heavy. I'm a big fan. Best swing since Kawhi for sure." I think the context of this conversation was mainly to put some respect on Brandon Ingram's name as an offensive player. It is not nothing I've said, and I hope hopefully you have not misunderstood me. I'm not saying Ingram is a superstar. I'm not saying Ingram is Kobe Bryant. I'm not saying Ingram is going to be the Raptors' best player. In fact, I'm convinced he's not going to be their best player. I'm not even completely sure he's going to be their leading scorer. Although, if I had to bet money, which I don't bet money as you all know, I would bet on Ingram to be their leading scorer and their leading shot taker. I don't know. Nothing that I've said here is leading me to the conclusion that he's going to play 70 games, that the Raptors are going to have him for the playoffs, that all that stuff. What I'm saying is this skill set, this diverse offensive wing who can playmake, this skill set, I would argue you haven't had this player since Vince Carter because even Kawhi had limitations as a playmaker. DeMar had limitations as a three-point shooter. The closest thing you've actually had to a player who is so offensively slanted and so offensively diverse is Vince Carter.
Now, let me be careful when I say this. Even Vince Carter was not that offensively diverse. He was dominant. He was a great shooter. He was a good mid-range shooter, but he had predictability in his game. He wasn't nearly the playmaker early on in his career. He was a good playmaker, very underrated, but not nearly to the level of Ingram. He wasn't 6'9". He didn't see the passing angles. His handle wasn't nearly as dynamic. From a pure skill set perspective, when you combine it with everything else, Brandon Ingram could become, I could hear a debate that Brandon Ingram is the most talented player in Raptors history. I could hear it. He's not the best. He's not the best. Kawhi was the best. Vince was the second best. Siakam, Bosh, they're all up there. Those are the best players. Ingram's not better than any of those players right now. He's not better than Siakam was three, four years ago. No, he's not. The defensive impact there. He's not better than Lowry was in '17. He's not better than Vince was in '01, '02, '03, or even '99. He's probably not better than Tracy McGrady was in 2000, if I'm being honest. Tracy just didn't get the minutes to prove it. He's not better than those players. He's more offensively diverse than those players. He has fewer holes in his game than those players.
So, what you're working with, Darko Rajakovic, is insane talent. Between him and Scotty, you are working with like molds of golden clay. If you can harness it correctly, they have a chance to be better than Paolo and Bron. They have a chance to be better than Trae Young and Jalen Johnson. They have a chance to be better than Haliburton and Siakam. They have a chance to be better than Tatum and Brown. Or that might be stretching it, but you know, Tatum's so good. So that's the hope. That's the hope. So, you hope for that.
Shout outs. We got some new members. I shouted out KP earlier. Shout out to Mr. Canada became a YouTube member. Shout outs to you, Mr. Canada. We got Kevin Kilix Rio. Thank you so much for subscribing. And of course, Mark Tavarus, longtime channel subscriber. Thank you for becoming a member. There is a good benefit to becoming a member on all three tiers. Different tiers have different membership perks, obviously with the VIP stuff. We're working it out. I'm going to, you know, over the next week, I'm going to work with the people who sign up for the VIP tier to figure out what y'all want exactly. There's a lot I can do. There's a lot I can do with this. I can break down entire games for you. I can do, you know, off-air lives. I can do a lot of stuff. It's cool. The perk of becoming a member at the Chatter level, VIP level, or Baller level is that every single month you do get a member chat. So, to those of you who frequently super chat, become a member. It's cheaper. You don't have to super chat anymore. You can just member chat. You get one free member chat every single month. Pretty much pays itself. All right. So, thank you so much. I am working on that top 40 Raptor season peaks video. Maybe it is the PC influence, but I'm starting to work on a lot more countdown lists. I was thinking of a top 25 trade targets for the Raptors, top, you know, 20 Raptors in NBA history, you know, top 20 players in Raptors history. I was thinking about the top, you know, top this, top that. And it just came to me. I was like, "You know what? Peak seasons, there's a chance to talk about Doug Christie. There's a chance to talk about Danielle Marshall. There's a chance to talk about Mo Pete. I'm for it." So, that video will drop at some point this week. I'm working on it after I, you know, after I exit this live. I'm going to be working on it. I'm going to be doing the data crunch numbers. I'm going to try to put some graphics together. Give y'all some real context. I've been a Raptor fan, not since day one, not since 1995, but since '99, '00, I've been a big-time Raptor fan. I have a lot of memories. And the good thing for me, by the way, is that apart from one player who shall remain, you know, a mystery prior to '98, there were no players who made this list. None. So, I don't need to talk about the time that I wasn't really a Raptor fan. I pretty much got here when things got good. I stayed when things got bad. I stayed when things got worse. I was here when things got good again. I was here when things got really great. And then I was here for Scotty's draft. And now I'm here again. I'm here again to tell you that Brandon Ingram is awesome and that you should not listen to content creators out there telling you that he's nothing. Because for my money, the Raptors addressed two of their biggest needs, three of their biggest needs. They replaced a very inexperienced starter in Grady Dick with a very experienced one in Brandon Ingram. They replaced a very poor isolation scorer with a really good isolation scorer. And they added a three-pointer, a three-point shooter. And they did so without really taking away anyone from their core rotation. What matters here is that the downstream effect of this is that it will help your depth in theory. If guys like Grady Dick, Ochai Agbaji, if there's an upgrade offered somewhere, if one of these guys can just become way better very quickly, if Colin Murray-Boyles comes out with a Scotty Barnes season off the bench, things can get very, very good for the Raptors, and they've never had more talent in my humble opinion than they do right now, other than the championship team. Like you can say the championship team had more talent. Sure. But apart from that, go down Raptors history. 2000. Vince, Tracy, a lot of talent there in terms of raw talent. I'm not saying materializing on the court. In terms of raw talent, Grady, Ochai, Koloko, Christian Koloko, so much talent. Mobile talent. Granted, not quite to the level that those guys are. Olynyk, raw potential. Scotty, Ingram, two big six-foot-nine wings. R.J. Barrett, 25 years old, former, you know, number one recruit. Immanuel Quickley, you know, movement shooter, dynamic movement shooter. You got a lot of talent, man. And you got a coach who knows how to, who knows how to milk it, work it. This could be a miracle season for the Raptors. Upside 52 wins, downside 38 wins. That's my range.
Give this video a like, please, on your way out. Appreciate it very much. And uh, shout outs to Brandon Ingram. Wishing you good luck, man. Uh, wow, Clean Shaving Rob can't recognize you, bro. Uh, we sometimes do some off-basketball talk towards the end of these lives. Let's do some here. I saw a picture of myself from a film festival in 2017. It was the first film festival I got accepted to, and I was at that film festival again for a film that I was the director of photography for two days ago, Sunday night, three days ago now, Sunday night. I saw a picture of myself from the side. I've had a very defined chin and a very defined jawline for most of my life. There's like a one-year exception when I was 16 years old and I got a little bit fat for like, you know, six months 'cause I got suspended from the basketball team and ended up eating Taco Bell every single day. But for the most part, I've had a pretty defined jawline. And I've taken a lot of pride in that because I really don't like this idea of a recessed chin. And the other day, I noticed that my chin is starting to move inward on me. And I was like, "What the [ __ ] This is why I want the beard."
If you are someone out there who wants to change this, I'm going to give you two minutes of free advice that has nothing to do with basketball, okay? And I'm going to prove it to you by reshaping my face. And you know, y'all will notice, I don't know if you can see this because I have lighting and [ __ ]. Y'all see like, if to those of you who followed me for the last four years, have you seen my face is sort of sinking down a little bit? It's not just 'cause I'm getting old. It's because I have bad habits. There we go. Member asks, "I got you. So, why is your chin? Why are you forming a double chin? Why is your chin starting to go in? Why are you starting to see sagging in your face? Why are your jaw muscles not as defined?" There's a lot of reasons for it. I'll give you one. You're not properly chewing your food. Either nobody taught you how to chew your food or you've gotten into a habit of chewing your food improperly. To teach you how to chew your food properly, you should really, really chew your food like 20, 30 times. It should be mush. And then instead of sucking your food down, which is the wrong idea, move your food using your tongue to the back of your throat. Don't suck your food. One. Two, stop mouth breathing. A lot of people who have sinus congestion, allergies, for whatever reason, breathe with their mouth. Andrea Bargnani used to breathe with his mouth all the time. It's a terrible, terrible thing. It's horrible for your breath. It's horrible for your chin. Don't mouth breathe. If you need to stop yourself from mouth breathing, breathe. First of all, learn to breathe with your nose first, then stop the mouth breathing. It's a chain reaction. Two things. Number three, your tongue position is incorrect. Most people have a very improper tongue position, which usually messes up not only their jawline, but also their facial structure, also their features, and also their teeth. The proper tongue position is the back of your tongue at the roof of your mouth when you're sitting still. Do this all day. Once you start to do it, it will feel natural. For the first little bit, it will feel very unnatural. Number four, fix your posture. This is proper posture. My girlfriend is 5'7". I am 5'11". The wake-up call for me was when she put on 3-inch heels and was my height. I was like, "What the [ __ ] happened?" I started going to the gym immediately. I was like, "I am too young to be shrinking." What's happened to me is six, seven, eight hours a day of sitting at the computer and my chest is starting to cave in on itself like a nerd. So, fix all those things. Number four, five, whatever. If you want to jaw-size, do it. You don't have to do it. I'm not Joe Rogan. I'm definitely not telling you to do that. When you do these things, a lot of things are going to happen right away for you. And I promise you, it's going to change how you look and how you feel about yourself. Number one, your chin will start to come back out. If you're a man, this is a good look. This is an attractive look. Women look for strong jawlines. If you're a woman, this is also a good look. Men like strong, defined jawlines and women, not big bulky jawlines. We're not looking for, you know, bodybuilder jawlines, but I'm saying like a nice, you know, that kind of like, you understand what I'm saying? Cool. So, if you want to jaw-size, do it. I'm not, I'm not telling you you have to do it. If you do this, this, this process of, you know, keeping your tongue at the bottom, at the roof of your mouth, and most important, don't just put the tip of your tongue at your mouth. And do not press your tongue against your teeth. You will make yourself buck-toothed, especially if you're young. So, keep your tongue, proper posture against the roof of your mouth. The most important part of this is keep the back part of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Do not breathe with your mouth whenever possible. Breathe through your nose. Learn how to breathe through your nose if you don't. The benefits of this will be not only does your jawline get more defined. Not only does your chin start to pop out a little bit more, not only does this, you know, little fat thing that you got going on here, that goes away. So, your profile becomes a lot stronger. I promise you the rest of your face will look better as well because immediately you'll have more muscle here. You'll have more muscle and your face will fill out. So you are, this can be a game-changer as well. Be safe. I'm not going to suggest doing this, but yeah.
Do people's teeth touch or do you leave a gap? I had a bad habit of clenching. I don't, I don't touch the teeth. So, my goal is within two weeks, I think I'm going to fix my jawline. I'm, I'm already working on everything, bro. I've had horrible scars. When I was in grade seven, someone cleated my face, and I decided to go the next day and play basketball all day. I ended up getting like horrible, horrible scarring all over my face to the point where when I went on a date when I was 16 or 17 years old, because of how bad some of my scars were, I didn't want to sit on the left side of my date. I would always go to the other side. That's how conscious I was of it when I was 16. Then obviously, I had the massive scar on my forehead, which some of you have seen when I'm not wearing a hat. That scar was 39 stitches across my head from an accident that I had. I've had many other scars. I'm trying to fix everything, bro. I'm not walking, I'm not moving another year of my life with all these things that I want to fix. So, I'm getting all that together. I'm getting a lot more ambitious. I'm getting very inspired. And I'm reminded that one of the most ambitious years of my life was 2019. One of the best. Now, obviously, COVID happened right after and it all went to [ __ ]. But I will tell you, I never put more effort into Pendants. I never put more effort into my body. That year was great. It was so great. And it happened to coincide with my team playing the best basketball they've ever had, having a real chance in an NBA championship. I don't know if those two things are connected. I don't. Maybe it's completely a one-off. Maybe it is. But I remember 2007 was one of the best years of my life, too. And the Raptors were in the playoffs. I think it's, at the risk of sounding very lame, my life is just way better when the Raptors are a good basketball team. Anyone else agree? Anyone else just feel like, man, life's better. Food tastes better. I'm in a better mood when the Raptors are good. You know, when the Raptors are bad, I'm just like, kind of like always kind of pissy. So, I'm looking forward to this season. Please don't let me down, Raptors. You know, but I feel good. Thank you to our new members. Shout outs to our VIPs. Can't I'm with you. Nice. 2009, I was doing so well. Yeah. I mean, I got into the best shape of my life in 2019 when the Raptors won a championship. I felt like I won a championship. I was so happy, man.
When this video goes live, let me know. I'm actually curious. I've never asked y'all this. When this video goes live to the, you know, 176 of you who are in here and to those of you who watch us later, where were you when the Raptors won the championship? I'm actually very curious. I'll talk to y'all later. Peace.