As New Orleans Pelicans star Brandon Ingram was helped off the floor after suffering a severe low ankle sprain in the second half of Saturday’s one-sided loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, it felt like the little hope the team was clinging to was leaving with him.
New Orleans has been snake-bitten by the injury bug since before the regular season began. Trey Murphy III strained his hamstring on the second day of training camp. Dejounte Murray broke his hand in the first game of the regular season. Murray, Murphy, Zion Williamson, CJ McCollum and Herb Jones have all missed significant time over the past two months.
The barrage of injuries has played a major role in New Orleans plummeting to the bottom of the Western Conference after an awful 5-20 start, the latest loss coming down to the final minute in San Antonio on Sunday. Still, the Pelicans have maintained the belief that once the team got some consistency with their main pieces in place, perhaps they could do enough to save this season.
The Ingram injury should extinguish that flicker. Now, the Pelicans will be without Williamson and Ingram indefinitely. Digging themselves out of this kind of hole was a tall enough order. Doing it without their two best offensive players seems impossible.
Maybe there’s a world in which Williamson and Ingram are back at some point in January and they can lead a miraculous run to the Play-In Tournament down the stretch. It is highly unlikely, even if the Pelicans can navigate the next month or so better than they handled the first seven weeks while undermanned.
Not only will the Pelicans have to face that reality now that Ingram is injured, they’ll also have to face all the ramifications that come with this lost season. There are a lot of them.
At the top of that list will be Ingram’s future in New Orleans and how the failures of this season will impact the team’s decisions moving forward. Ingram is set to hit unrestricted free agency next summer, and the team has made it clear that giving Ingram the lucrative extension he’s been seeking won’t work financially with the current core that New Orleans has in place.
The Pelicans have explored the idea of trading Ingram since last summer. Should they be more urgent in their attempts to move him instead of facing the possibility of allowing him to walk for nothing? Are there any teams that would give anything of value up for Ingram, knowing how much it’ll cost to keep him on his next contract?
Then, there’s the timing of this injury. The NBA trade deadline falls on Feb. 6. If Ingram doesn’t make his return until after the new year, that will give potential Ingram suitors limited time to evaluate his health going into the final stretch of the season. Would that scare some playoff contenders away?
There is also the potential that New Orleans will go in a different direction. Maybe the team decides it’s worth it to keep Ingram around if both sides can agree on a reasonable extension, even if that means someone like McCollum would have to be moved in a potential cap-clearing deal, if such a move exists.
Does this organization really have the stomach for one more year of hoping the Williamson-Ingram combo can stay healthy enough to make it work? It would incense some fans, but it’s certainly a possibility.
The Williamson part of this whole scenario will be another critical part of the Pelicans’ decision-making over the next few months. How does Williamson look if/when he makes his potential return to the lineup? How will his play impact what the front office decides to do with the rest of the roster? If he looks like an All-Star, should the team trust him enough to go all-in with him as the face of the franchise again? How bleak does the future look if the season ends and he’s still struggling to stay on the court?
Another curveball: The Pelicans can walk away from Williamson’s deal at no financial cost before July if they so choose.
The questions are relentless. What if the Pelicans explore the idea of getting the best deal possible for Williamson and/or Ingram and they aren’t happy with any of the offers they receive? Would it be worth it to make such a deal knowing the return doesn’t match up with the value those guys bring when they’re healthy?
It’s easy to say “blow it up” and “break up this core” when things aren’t working out. But when teams have to face the reality of what life is like when those stars are gone, it’s not always appealing.
At this point, most fans in New Orleans would prefer if the team spent less time trying to save this season and more looking forward to a 2025 draft class that’s stacked with high-end talent. Landing a top-five pick in this year’s draft could be a much bigger deal than in years past. That alone makes the idea of chasing an improbable run back to the Play-In Tournament feel misguided.
But, at least for now, the Pelicans still have Murray, McCollum, Jones, Murphy and surprising rookie Yves Missi. If that group can remain healthy, New Orleans will be competitive most nights. If anything, there will be a level of motivation from Murray and the younger guys on the roster to develop chemistry in preparation for the future — whether it includes Williamson and Ingram or not.
These major decisions on big-money contracts usually alter the direction of a franchise, one way or the other. The moves New Orleans makes over the next six months will determine if this season was just a speed bump along the way or the beginning of a much-needed rebuild.
The Pelicans thought they had enough time — and talent — to compete now and worry about the future ramifications later. With Ingram in street clothes, they no longer have that luxury.
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(Top photo: Sean Gardner/Getty)
