NEW ORLEANS — As Dejounte Murray wrapped up his first media day availability as a member of the New Orleans Pelicans, he stepped off the podium and saw a familiar face walking in to take his place on the hot seat.
It was Brandon Ingram.
“I was just talking about you,” Murray said with a smile before embracing his new teammate.
Join the club.
Ingram and his current contract situation have been a constant source of conversation among those in the Pelicans universe throughout the summer. Much of the anticipation heading into Monday’s unofficial start of the Pelicans season was fuelled by uncertainty over what Ingram would say once he finally sat in front of a microphone.
Coming off his lackluster showing in last year’s postseason, Ingram endured a summer filled with trade rumors and failed attempts to lock in a long-term extension with New Orleans. Ingram will likely enter this season on an expiring contract, allowing him to enter unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2025.
There has been debate over Ingram’s current predicament and whether it’s a product of the new CBA, the shortcomings in his game or teams (including the Pelicans) undervaluing what he brings on and off the court. Regardless, he’ll have to deal with some rare circumstances heading into the 2024-25 season.
There aren’t too many players of Ingram’s caliber who get to the final year of their contracts without forcing their current team to make a tough decision: sign that player to a new extension or trade them. The Pelicans failed to accomplish either this summer as the NBA market dried up and left both sides without an alternative.
Even as he was questioned about his feelings on what transpired over the summer, Ingram’s approach was to keep everything as simple as possible.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I’m just happy to play basketball.”
You cannot ignore how complicated this situation will be for everyone involved. Ingram has to fully engage with a team that, to this point, has been unwilling to commit to him as a part of its future. The Pelicans also have to find a way to feature Ingram prominently and lean on him as a leader despite knowing that all signs point to him being with another team after this season.
The New York Knicks faced a similar situation with Julius Randle, who can opt out of the final year of his deal and enter unrestricted free agency next summer. But they eliminated that problem over the weekend after agreeing to a blockbuster trade that sent Randle to Minnesota in exchange for All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns.
For Ingram and the Pelicans, things will get at awkward at times. Both sides have to check their emotions. Ultimately, both sides understand that getting what they want from this current arrangement requires complete buy-in.
“Me and (Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin) have had a few conversations. But at the end of the day, it’s a business,” Ingram said. “It’s basketball. As long as I do the basketball part, the business is going to handle itself — whether it’s here or if it’s somewhere else.”
With all the noise surrounding him over the summer, Ingram said he made a point to get away from everything this summer so he could mentally reset and take a deeper look at what has led him here.
“I got a chance to get away and really reflect on, not only this season, but reflect on life a little bit: who I wanted to be, who I wanted to be known as and what values I wanted to show every single day,” Ingram said. “The biggest conclusion that I came to is (remembering) how long I’ve been playing the game of basketball and where I started, where I got the love for it from. I had to, kind of, go back to that.”
While Griffin and Ingram made an effort to say all the right things on Monday, some understandable skepticism exists among those who wonder if the vibes will remain this good if the team isn’t winning or if Ingram isn’t happy about his role.
“The reason people don’t get into this (contract) situation is because there’s not a level of trust between the two parties that he can enter the year and perform at a high level and be about the right things and that we would honor our commitment to him,” Griffin said. “Neither party has that fear here, so it’s going to be a unique situation.
“We know he has a level of commitment to us and I think he trusts that we do to him as well.”
If they can make this work, Ingram could end up playing well enough to shift how some teams view him once he hits the open market. Perhaps the Pelicans will be so impressed enough to reconsider his place as a core piece of the foundation beyond this season.
But it all starts with Ingram’s willingness to take a selfless approach this season.
Small ball is the answer
Along with all the confusion surrounding Ingram, the lack of a traditional center on the roster has been the other point of contention for New Orleans all summer. Veteran staples Jonas Valančiūnas and Larry Nance Jr. left during the offseason.
The only true centers left on the roster heading into training camp are new signee Daniel Thies and rookies Yves Missi and Karlo Matković.
While certain matchups will require New Orleans to lean on more traditional lineups, the team hopes that on most nights, this group will do its damage by playing small and fast.
With this current roster, the best five-man unit New Orleans can put on the floor will most likely feature Murray, Ingram, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy and Zion Williamson. And that’s not even including veteran bucket-getter CJ McCollum or sophomore sharpshooter like Jordan Hawkins. But how much can the Pelicans play these perimeter-oriented units without getting exposed on the boards and at the rim?
“It’s a challenge,” Griffin said. “Playing small requires that you overcome some deficiencies and lean into strengths.”
While there is plenty of concern over how much the Pelicans can make this commitment to small ball work, Griffin and general manager Bryson Graham spoke with great confidence on Monday about how far this roster can go in its current form.
Griffin said this team has “more talent than we’ve ever had,” and he also mentioned the 62-win 2004-05 Phoenix Suns as a group New Orleans can look to as a success story that many analysts thought was too good to be true because of their lack of size. That was Steve Nash’s first MVP season. Graham also pointed to the infamous “Death Lineup” that turned Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors into a dynasty, with Draymond Green as the de facto centre.
Those are some lofty goals to toss out to a team that hasn’t advanced past the second round since 2018. However, the common thread between the Nash Suns and the Curry Warriors is the commitment made by perimeter players on both rosters to chip in and do the dirty work. Whenever those teams had to handle a size disadvantage on defense, they answered it with activity and effort.
At the end of last season, the Pelicans started leaning more on those units and eventually found an identity playing that style as Williamson’s defense improved throughout the year.
According to Cleaning the Glass, when Williamson played without any other centers, the Pelicans outscored opponents by 10 points per 100 possessions. Those numbers come from a relatively small sample size (630 possessions), but they indicate how much damage they were able to do once they leaned into that identity late in the season.
In a crucial road win at Phoenix on April 7 last season, Pelicans head coach Willie Green played Valančiūnas four minutes to start the game before sitting him for the rest of the night. Less than a week later, the Pelicans got another crucial win in Golden State despite Valančiūnas playing only 16 minutes.
This team has seen what the path to success looks like with those small-ball groups. Now, it’s about committing to playing with that same level of effort and cohesion throughout an 82-game season.
“I feel like, in the past, we’ve always excelled with some of our small-ball units,” Williamson said. “Training camp will be a starting point for us to see where we need to be.”
Green said he won’t pick his starters until he sees the team work together at training camp this week in Nashville. While the expectation is that he’ll lean toward giving a traditional big — likely Theis — the starting nod, Green said he wants to remain open-minded to all possibilities.
“I’m not dead set on (starting a true center). I’m pretty undecided,” he said. “When we get to camp, I think your team helps you make those decisions. … There are going to be a ton of games when we don’t have a traditional center on the floor.”
Even if he announces who the starters will be at some point, expect him to adjust that group on nights when the opposing center isn’t as much of a threat. At the very least, Green will likely look at a few different starting units early in the season just to see what the chemistry and rotation patterns look like.
Green will have one of the more challenging jobs for any coach in the Western Conference this season as he attempts to carve out minutes for all these talented perimeter players without much clarity about whether he’ll be able to put all of them on the court at the same time and be successful. Either way, Green has to figure out quickly what works and what doesn’t work for this unorthodox roster.
Zion: guard or big?
Amongst all the talk about small-ball units and Williamson playing without another big, Griffin made one thing clear: Even if Williamson is technically the “biggest” player on the floor in a Pelicans lineup, he still shouldn’t be considered a center.
The vast majority of his game is focused from playing on the perimeter and handling the ball. Considering the amount of shots he creates for himself and others, he should be looked at more like a gigantic point guard rather than an undersized center.
“This is something I think people have a really difficult time getting their mind around when they see him. Zion grew up a point guard. He grew up with the ball in his hands. He literally identifies the game by facing the basket and handling the ball,” Griffin said. “He’s never been traditional as a big in any way, shape or form. And yet, because he’s large, people want to make him a ‘big.’ He’s really not that.”
So should we call Zion a point guard or a big man when the Pels go small?
“When people talk about, ‘Who’s going to play the five?’ I don’t know, but you can call Zion a six if you want to,” Griffin said jokingly. “It doesn’t matter.”
(Top Photo: Matthew Hinton / USA Today)
