How Much Will Brandon Ingram Help The Toronto Raptors On Both Ends?
brandon Ingram the ball handler Brandon Ingram the three-point shooter Brandon Ingram the defender That’s right folks We are about to dig all the way in on Brandon Ingram [Music] You are Locked On Raptors your daily Toronto Raptors podcast part of the Locked On podcast network Your team every day It’s your favorite part of the day Thanks for making Locked on Raptors your first listen every day I’m VC Jacob I’ve been covering the Toronto Raptors for eight seasons across several outlets You can follow it all on X Instagram and YouTube And be sure to check out the Lockdown Raptors Discord where you can talk all things basketball but especially the Raptors This episode is brought to you by Monarch Money Take control of your finances with MonarchMoney Use code lockdown NBA atmononey.com for 50% off your first year All right let’s get this party started On this Tuesday June the 17th we have a very special guest In my humble opinion the best to do it on the Raptors beat He’s the man who never sleeps So you know everything you need to about the Raptors the one and only Blake Murphy What’s up man What an intro What an intro This Usually when you come on my show I’m just like “Oh yeah V gets a haircut every day Hey here’s Fav This is a much better and more professional uh professional intro Of course man You’re the king at this Um obviously admired your work for a long time and now getting this chance to host I wanted to make sure I brought you on um and talk some Raptors Now I teased earlier that we’re going to get into Brandon Ingram all things Brandon Ingram So to start off you wrote upon the trade after which not much has changed Uh that you’re most intrigued by the Ingram Barnes pick and roll So to start off why is that so appealing to you Yeah So I mean first of all I probably should have saved this article for the the off season or something Uh at this point we thought we might get a sample size of uh of more than zero uh in the regular season but no Yeah when we were trying to you know obviously there’s the asset side the timeline side the cap side with Ingram but on court you know all that front officey talk I think sometime and I’m guilty of it as anyone but I think sometimes that confuses you know this is a really cool player and the Raptors got a really interesting a unique kind of offensive piece that they really haven’t had in a long time stylistically in terms of the ability to have one guy go get his bucket and things like that So as I was digging in I think the thing that people probably are most interested in but it takes up such a small part of the game is Ingram’s going to be the guy with the ball in his hands late in a game late in a clock and things like that And you know the Raptors in this era haven’t had that guy The last era was for good or bad It was Fred Vanle and you know his percentages would go down because that he’d get the grenade with five seconds left or whatever Ingram’s the first go get your bucket guy that they’ve had you know depending on how you felt about Pascal in his first AllNBA season Um you know maybe since Kawaii So that’s cool But you dig into the specifics of how Ingram does this And the reason that I think the Ingram Barnes pick and roll is the most interesting area for me is because Brendan Ingram is a really good pick and roll player He’s in New Orleans you know even with not an ideal fit very good pick and roll score able to get into the paint and attack out of the pick and roll decent pick and roll passer Meanwhile the Raptors were basically bottom of the league in terms of finishing plays by the pick and roll They were one of you know not not as extreme as Memphis but one of the teams that has kind of shifted away from a pick and roll heavy offense certainly a spread pick and roll attack uh in favor of more you know motion delay things like that So you get this really effective and pretty high volume pick and roll scorer in Ingram and just pick and roll operator in general and you’re going to drop them onto a team that doesn’t run a lot of pick and roll and could use a guy like that But I’m so fascinated to see what the volume is because the Raptors don’t do it a lot how it blends with some of their other schemes and how it fits with Scotty Barnes who we’ve seen him handle pick and roll a little bit We’ve seen him be the screener a little bit but really not at significant volume and really at the team level not super effectively So pretty big curiosity for me how that’s all going to fit together Yeah I think what’s fascinating to me is kind of like with the priorities shifting for the franchise and saying “Hey this is a year that we’re looking to make the playoffs and the rubber kind of meeting the road is how much do we see the offense change where you know obviously we’ve seen Darko come in and implement this ball movement style and get away from the quote unquote selfishness Now you’ve got this extremely quality player who can isolate who can as you said operate very well in the pick and roll Um I think his passing has been a bit undersold And I feel like this is where you know you could come into situations or maybe even more than situations where it’s like hey let’s put the ball in our best scorers hands and let him go to work Well and it’s not only your best scorers hand because yeah Ingram’s a really effective pick and roll scorer but there’s there’s been such a fascinating thing in the NBA finals and we’re recording this before game five so we’ll see how much it uh it plays out in game five But the Thunder back against the wall went to a JDub Shay pick and roll action that they barely used in the regular season because back against the wall nothing else is working Let’s involve our two best players We’ll figure it out Just put our best two players in the action And to me that’s for the Raptors that’s going to be Scotty Barnes and Brandon Ingram in whatever order So Ingram it’s you know he was I have the numbers here He was 72nd percentile in shooting volume out of the pick and roll and 78th percentile scoring efficiency as the pick and roll ball handler And that jumps into the 80th percentile and higher when you factor in his passes out of that So one pass away he kicks out to a shooter or feeds the roll man or whatever But when you’re looking at Barnes Barnes only set 3.2 two like screens that Synergy tracked as like screens with an intent to score this year That’s pretty low for like a primary pick and roll partner Um so yeah this is you know if you’re Darko even if you’ve instilled these principles the last couple of years one of the things you’re going to have to figure out is how to best involve your two your two best players directly all the time Like it’s still good like if Scotty Barnes and Yaka Purle run a pick and roll over here and Brandon Ingram spacing above the break on the other side that’s still going to be effective that’s still a way to use these guys but especially against teams that have multiple defensive options Um being able to put those guys in an action together and force some difficult decisions on on the defenses it’s going to be fascinating to me to see not only how it plays out but to your point you know that that give and take of we have designed a system this way the last two years and now we’ve got a guy who lets us expand the system if we want to do it and get back to a more you know traditional offensive attack a couple possessions a game And you know it’s a system that yes has rated very highly in passes in assists but in overall offensive efficiency has not proven to be very effective And so I think that’s the other aspect where you know maybe if you had obtained more success I think it’ll be more of an interesting conversation to have in terms of hey how hard do we stick to this Well yeah look at the Memphis example this year right And they obviously let go of their coach at the end of the season There was obviously friction behind the scenes but they went away from the kind of jawbased high pick and roll spread pick and roll attack Um like they were kind of like the leader in the league in terms of going away from that And at one point they had like a top I think a top six or top eight offense or something like that So it’s hard I would imagine if you were John Morant it would be hard to be like well this sucks um because the results were really good whereas the Raptors and I don’t think Brandon Ingerb is the type of person that’s going to be like this sucks He seems like a a good team first dude Um but yeah it’s not you know the offense got better as the season went along last year but it’s not as if this is a top 10 offense that everything’s been clicking They need a bit more shooting They need a bit more dynamism And I think uh I think Ingram can provide that And I think you know I I know there there are some there’s some pockets of the fan base that want the ball in Scotty’s hands a ton and that can still be the case But I think an interesting thing for Scotty as a role man is and and role man Yes rolling to the basket He’s going to roll more often than he pops The numbers were really shaky last year Basically whenever Scotty was the screener in pick and roll but keep in mind who would have been the pick and roll partner how little he played with quickly and things like that I think if you’re Barnes something that’s interesting is opponents only when Barnes was the screener opponents only switched that 27% of the time last year So if you think about it Barnes is on a big and I know right now he’s a little better attacking you know kind of getting to that mid post area and shooting back over big or whatever We don’t necessarily think of him as a string a guy out and and attack one-on-one But if you’re if there’s a big covering you only about a quarter of the time when you set a screen did you get a switch with the smaller guy on you And if you can up that volume to where those mid post fade away over a big man can turn into you’ve actually got a mouse in the house situation Um whether to score or draw the extra help We know how much he likes passing out of those situations when the extra help comes Sorry my cat is attacking the webcam right now Um I think that’s an interesting I think that’s an interesting uh element for him as well He should get you know there are teams that’ll have I guess a couple teams that’ll have two big guys that you could put on Barnes and Ingram and switch freely but for the most part teams are going to have to switch that more than they did last year And very few teams I think are going to have two guys that they’re comfortable guarding either Barnes or Ingram So maybe some more mismatch opportunities for Scotty out of that as well Yeah I think that’s a really fascinating point that you make And you know when we dig into this a bit further how that Brandon Ingram can create three-point opportunities for not just the team but himself is going to be a huge measure I think uh for this team success next season Yeah it’s definitely going to be uh you know a big part of that and and again Ingram is the pick and roll stats get even better when you consider pass one pass away out of the pick and roll So you know you think of who New Orleans had around him They had some decent shooters You know Trey Murphy the third is uh pretty damn good They had but it’s not as if they had a bunch of him right Like Herb Jones spacing You know their point guards aren’t shoot heavy guys and Dejonte Murray and Jose Alvarado McCullum adds some spacing So overall the shooting talent in New Orleans was probably a little bit better around Ingram pick and roll actions than it’ll be initially in Toronto Um we’ll see how the the you know offseason shakes out and the draft shakes out and things like that Uh but yeah I think you know you use that advantage Show me the team that is going to be able to guard an Ingram Barnes pick and roll with an eye toward the basket with only two guys and there’s probably you know three or four like okay the Cavs and the Thunder and the Celtics aren’t going to be healthy but if they were healthy maybe the Celtics like you’re you’re running at teams pretty quick that’ll be comfortable switching that without sending a third body in even without the like you know Scotty can be a good role threat but not a you know over-the-top vertical threat You’re going to be sending a third guy somewhere in there So um you know that opens up some stuff And again like I said if you get the mismatch then Scotty’s operating out of a out of a mismatch that’s going to require some extra help and he can kick it out of there So I think you know the biggest thing is with in terms of generating more and we could talk about Ingram’s three-point shooting himself but in terms of generating more the more threats you have on the paint the more the three-point line should open up in theory Yep Yep That’s it I That’s what we’ve seen the Pacers do right Everything starts with attacking the basket first As much as we talk about how hot their outside shooting is it all starts with when they’re actually able to create that dribble penetration and create those paint touches We will get to those threes in a second NBA fans you know what time it is Playoff season means big performances and even bigger rewards Door Dash is bringing the heat with a slam dunk deal for Dash Pass members during the 2025 NBA playoffs It’s called They Swoosh You Score Anytime a player drops 50 or more points in a playoff game Dash Pass members score a free threepiece crispy tenders combo from Wingstop the very next day Just place an order of 20 or more Use the code wingstop 50 at checkout and that combo is yours Crispy delicious and totally free Offer valid noon to midnight the day after the game Terms apply Ever looked at your delivery fees and thought “There’s got to be a better way.” With Dash Pass you get zero dollars in delivery fees and exclusive perks like this one So here’s the play Sign up for Dashpass to unlock this and more exclusive deals all season long When any player scores 50 plus in a playoff game Dashpass members can grab a free threepiece crispy tenders combo from Wingstop the next day That’s the code is Wingtop 50 That’s Dashpass your door to more savings more flavor and more ways to win Terms apply And we are back at it And as we said we are going to get into everything from three-point rage regarding Brandon Ingram Now I think we saw a bit of a tease I don’t think we can call it more than that because of how little he played this season of the three-point volume increasing Shot it at a good rate He has been shooting it at a good rate the last few seasons But is that volume something we can come to expect And even that if he’s attempting six threes a game is that enough Yeah I think in terms of can we expect it to come up It has to If you I’m sure the conversations with Brandon Ingram upon acquiring him and before the extension involved some talk of how they intend to use him in the offense what they see his role as Um I’m sure Brandon Ingram is very aware that a three counts more than two So if he’s looking at his PPG you know the the extra threes are going to help And look I think this is a guy his first two years in New Orleans he averaged over six a game That went down Last year it was back up to almost six and a half a game And we’re chopping up samples here but I think we can safely say his each of those seasons he shot 37.4% or higher on threes So sometimes when you look if a guy’s shooting two threes a game and he’s at 39% you worry a little bit right Like what if the volume goes up Is is he only taking the really open runs the really easy ones We can pretty safely say with Ingram that based on the his percentages when the volume went up uh he can be effective at higher volume as well Um more importantly like look I’m I’m not going to do the Shay Gildas Alexander takes mid-range shots that analytics guys say are bad Like love Tim McMahon and the hat he was wearing on the Hoop Collective today but that’s like a that’s a 2017 conversation Uh however I do think that it is instructive if you are a very very good mid-range shooter and most of your mid-range attempts in the modern NBA are going to come off the dribble No one’s really spacing a guy up in the long mid-range Um when you’re talking about shooting quality and how much you trust a guy to knock down threes I think it’s pretty straightforward right If you are very very good at off the dribble 21footers you should be pretty good at stationary 24 25 footers Um the other thing we can look at with Ingram as well um he when we look into the splits he is over 39% over the past three seasons in catch and shoot So a lot of even if you don’t love the percentage on the surface that’s dragged down a little bit by he takes a difficult diet of them He’s mostly above the break because you’re you’re almost never going to put a guy like Brandon Ingram in the corner It’s just not how you want to space him you want him to have the option to attack against a close out and things like that from the top So he’ll be there a little bit but not a ton So when we only look at catch and shoot which is probably the most important aspect when we’re talking about spacing and the potential to get volume almost a 40% catch and shoot three-point shooter over the course of the last three seasons Um so I I think we can pretty safely say that Brennan Ingram would be an effective three-point shooter at more volume Uh I think ideally that number is probably up around like eight attempts a game Um whether it gets that high I’m not sure but I think six should be you know the floor The Raptors need to create more three-point volume He’s going to be one of their best shooters Uh they gota they got to give him the green light to get those up Yeah for fans listening the Raptors finished second last in three-point attempt rate last season Um well this season I guess until we get a couple games done Um you’re on your Bobby Marks here right the league year does not change until the apron doesn’t change until the end of the finals And uh so the Raptors were second last They were dead last in above the breakup attempts And so that’s hopefully something that Ingram can help address And one thing I wanted to pick your brain about is potentially the use of we talked about Scotty as the screener and Scotty as the role man but Ingram as a screener and potentially a pop man And you know whether it’s actions with Scotty whether it’s actions with Quickly um I think there’s some interesting opportunities there I’m sure Darko is you know working like a mad scientist to figure out the ways that he can get Ingram in those situations Uh what do you see from Ingram and his potential to maybe be used as a screener and get those pop opportunities where you said you know his catch and shoot numbers are really high Yeah I think you know this will be an interesting test in terms of you know how like we’ve heard since from the time they got him that they were working on the the strength and conditioning around not just the ankle but in general his lower half try to keep him healthy because he’s uh he’s an effective obviously a very effective player but he could use a little bit of strength in the lower half and that’s something that like really up and down the roster like Yak’s the only good screener on the team Oi got a little better at it this season Um but Scotty Barnes that’s an area he could improve and I think he will because it’s it’s an interesting thing Scotty Barnes is so smart that I think you could sit down with him and be like “Look at all the stuff we can create with you as the screener and he’ll come back better at that.” Um whereas Ingram and it’s smallish sample because I only went through the videos from last year so he obviously didn’t play a ton and he only said about two and a half screens per game but he popped more than threequarters of the time And a lot of times like we could say he screamed in pop but it was like closer to a ghost right where so for anyone a ghost is like you almost kind of faint the screen and it’s you you telegraph right from the outset that it’s about setting up that pop shot Usually you do that more with like a pure shooter a smaller guy Um but he’ll do that a little bit um almost in like a not quite a buddy healed when he was on the Pacers way but they ran him just like run by the guy with the ball Don’t even set the pick and go So look the RA and the Raptors could use some of that They don’t have a lot of guys you know Grady will set some go screens quickly can do it That’s an interesting wrinkle to have but yeah I think you can mine more out of if Ingram especially high on the floor Um like I don’t know that you’re going to do this at like the free throw line and have Ingram do the back step out but higher on the floor drag situations like coming up in semi-transition uh when he’s got you know early horns position or something like that I think there’s opportunity uh for that He was again tiny tiny sample but he was 83rd percentile in the league scoring as the pop guy So there’s there’s at least a little bit of sample there saying he should be pretty good It’s funny to look at like uh the cat Sorry Uh it’s funny to look at like the heat map too of like where his shots come from in those situations because it’s all one side always popped to the left side of the floor um for whatever reason I’m sure that had more to do with who was handling the ball for him and it was some it was players who would always go right Um but yeah very unidirectional Anyway I do I think you’re right that there’s something uh when you mentioned it to me in DM I went and looked at some of the video and dug some of the numbers up Um yeah tiny sample but pretty effective as a as a pop guy Just got to hit the screens a little bit more than just uh then just goes past it I I still get a little PTSD anytime someone mentions horns in a Raptors context because my mind just goes back to LeBron and Kevin Love and just yeah burning well there was there’s horn the other thing that kills me and this was really tough when the Raptors got Greg Monroe too is corner offense um because the LeBron and bench units in that 2016 year that was no love that was like Fry and Delivadova right and RJ and someone else I’m drawing a blank on who the other guy was “Could you cut it out please?” Um uh and they just like 13 possessions in a row beat the Raptor Maybe it was Yeah maybe it was Tristan Anyway whoever the big was Uh yeah So horns and and corner offense LeBron has left a lot of damage over the year Uh one final thing you know to touch on with Brandon and the three-point shooting We we’ve already talked about you know opportunities for him to shoot the ball but this is where I think we can come back to his passing ability and his ability to generate looks for others Um and you know I think generally he’s someone who doesn’t get all the way to the basket He obviously is he’s so reliable in that mid-range that he kind of gets to that spot and he’s going to pull up But do you see more of an opportunity for him to push for those deep paint touches to create better looks for his teammates I do Yeah And I think that you know that’ll probably be a point of emphasis And schematically if you can get him attacking against an advantage a little more often than having to create one-on-one you know that’s that’s in part why they like to have the offense the way it is So that tiny advantage turns into a slightly bigger one turns into a slightly bigger one And then you don’t have to you know RJ on the second side can attack a scrambled defense rather than swing swing stationary one-on-one Um and there there as you dig in there are good indicators that Ingram can be really effective in that I think we both agree he’s a pretty underrated passer I wrote it in that piece Um even just on drives so take the pick and roll Like I said earlier the pick and roll stuff the numbers are pretty good like 80th percentile and higher when we include the pass out of it on drives he passed over 40% of the time which would which is one of the higher marks in the league for volume drivers and he was like right there with RJ in terms of assists out of drive So if you think about RJ’s growth as a playmaker and the way he got his driving opportunities in the Raptors offense uh Ingram was kind of right there with him on volume So that’s something that he’s capable of doing as well Um and and I just like like obviously there’s always going to be a big question mark when a guy jumps from a pretty different system to a pretty different system but the more you watch of Ingram and Bobby Webster was like really hammered after the trade the IQ element Um Ingram’s a smart player and I think the passing backs that up and when you not to crap on New Orleans because there’s a lot of individual talent there but you go back and you watch some of the tape on Ingram from this past season and it’s a it’s a fair amount of like what is going on here Like what is the intention of the offense So um not to say that the Raptors are a finish product offensively but I do think you take the basketball sense you take the natural passing ability that ability to create either via the drive or pick and roll Um I think you can do a lot there He was like he was like 96th percentile in assist rate among wings and forwards per cleaning the glass Uh and that’s like even when you control for efficiencile So pretty good passer all told Um so I’m I’m pretty pretty encouraged by what the the dive on his passing says Just a matter of you know does it how does it fit specifically if that makes sense Yeah I think both you and I are pretty similar on how we see him offensively and you know pretty high We will next get into the defense Ever check your bank account and wonder 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thing that used to bother me where he would often you know confuse that effort of really just getting up high and then just get blown by and then be behind the play We we we still see it from time to time but I I think the frequency has significantly decreased And so with that being said knowing obviously what Yakapurle’s role is I think that Brandon Ingram’s best role is part of the backline where he can use his length to not just contest at the rim but to get drives and then scramble out to the perimeter to contest when he needs to Do you see it similarly I see that certainly at this point being Ingram’s best role You know you’re down there you have a 7 foot3 wingspan a 9 foot one standing reach Uh you you see the game pretty well you have pretty good instincts at both ends of the floor Uh so yeah I could see him being used like that Um I think it’ll probably I mean as with anything it’ll it’ll kind of depend on matchup and it’ll go back and forth I still I still really like Scotty in that kind of backline safety role because I think he’s like one of the four or five highest impact guys in the league doing that role Um but like you said improved a lot on the perimeter in a way that I don’t know that Ingram has that in him Like I think I think Ingram can be better than he’s shown He has pretty good you know lateral quickness and things like that Um the the steel rates have never been there So does that tell you you know is that a risk profile Is that a um anticipation profile I’m not really sure Um and one of the other Yeah So I I do I agree with you that that’ll probably be Ingram’s best deployment especially early on as he learns the system and stuff like that I think you’d hope that you could get him better along the perimeter so that you could still use Scotty in that role against certain matchups Um you know it like I it’s it’s tough because against the best perimeter like let’s say there’s let’s say there’s Paulo right who’s going to have the ball a lot Maybe this is a bad example because the magic trade and they’re going to look different but uh a bigger ball dominant guy I want Scotty on that guy in on the perimeter or wherever it is right Um now if it’s a point guard who is going to put a lot of pressure on the paint and Yakapurle is going to need some help in there then I would rather have Barnes in the kind of safety role so he can kind of be over there and help and create some chaos help on the dump offs and things like that Uh so it’ll be a little matchup dependent for me but yeah I think I’m with you that that initially like all else equal You’d have Barnes guarding the whichever of the two three four is going to have the ball most often at the top of the floor Slot Ingram off the corner U the other thing about having Ingram in the corner and kind of in that help role is he’s a really good defensive rebounder So you know in the same way that Scotty is a really good defensive rebounder and having him down there he’s a double double machine Ingram’s probably not going to start the break as much as Scotty but you like the way your defensive rebounding profile looks if you have Scotty cracking back from the top and looking to run and then you have Purle and Ingram both close to the baseline Yeah I guess it’s going to be a bit of a debate on you know what gives the Raptors their highest defensive ceiling Is it putting Scotty and Yak together where we know they are truly great in that backline or is it mitigating some of the perimeter concerns you have with Quickly and Barrett and saying okay at least you’ve got Scotty there to kind of protect them and like and then on top of that like what do you do if it’s like a point guard team right like because you just I don’t think e like Scotty even Scotty’s improvements on the perimeter I don’t you would prefer not to have him on a point guard like um what was it the Cavs you know you could the Cavs are an interesting one right you got Garland and Mitchell out there so he’s probably guarding one of those guys um but there’s still another one and I don’t know you look at like a Tyrese like the Pacers for example you probably want Scotty on either Turner or Seakum for switch purposes um so I don’t know it’s going to be fascinating and this isn’t really an Ingram conversation this is a you have created a defensive back court that’s not very good defensively uh you know and and this is where it’ll be really interesting There are obviously a million trade rumors out there as we’re recording this Um none of those trade rumors address the backcourt defensively and I don’t know that anyone at number nine in the draft is going to address that imminently either Um maybe longer term if you you get one of the more 3 and D types but yeah they’re going to have to cobble this together So I think talking it through now I think your instinct is probably right that Barnes is going to have a more you know whichever of the two three is or or four I guess if it’s a if it’s a top four ball dominant four But yeah you’re going to have him on the ball a little bit more because you can’t you can’t have even if you think Ingram can get up to like average defensively he’s probably graded out as a little below average for for the most of his career even if you think you can coach them up and effort them up to average having like average average average best case scenario across three positions is going to be uh is going to be tough So I think yeah talk it through I think your instinct’s probably right on Barnes’s deployment Yeah And just to bring it all around I think maybe we can talk about Barnes a little bit And you know when I look at the fit between these two Ingram and Barnes you you we’ve just talked about how maybe defensively you have to challenge Scotty even more uh to be able to defend the perimeter with that maybe being in the best interest of the team And then on the offensive side of it we started talking about you know the Scotty Ingram uh pick and roll And if Scotty can actually develop that ability to be a bit of a pop threat even that changes the dynamic of that action too It does And and I don’t know you know Scotty’s going to be a better than a 27% three-point shooter Um I think you could get him there by way of cutting out some of the pullup threes and stuff like that Um I think so I think there’s interest there I also like I would guess I don’t have access to this level of data but I would guess if we were able to quantify who has you know the best defender on them and where the closest help is I would imagine Scotty had among the most difficult shot diets in the league last year because the Raptors just didn’t have a lot of offensive threats around him whether spacing wise or pick and roll partner wise and things like that So I think the biggest thing I’m interested in for Barnes is yeah the pick and pop stuff would be cool rolling at the rim a little bit more be cool Um I just think having a really talented offensive player next to him that you know all respect to to R.J and the growth he showed this year he’s not quite on Brandon Ingram’s level as an offensive player I I think having that will open up a lot for him Um whether you know the post offense the who’s guarding him the one-on-one stuff Uh some of that is like you know what was it the the Philly game where after Bonner made a comment suddenly Scotty had a nose for the rim Uh you know some of that is like within you to just attack the matchup a little bit more But I think a chunk of it too will be like there’s real offensive talent around you at this point in a way that should make your life a little bit easier I also want to know too that like Scotty did not have an impressive offensive season in terms of like compare 2023 24 to 2024 25 like the numbers were down basically you know across the board and percentages but that also happened in his second year and then he took a huge jump in his third year So I wouldn’t I I’m not uh what I’m trying to say is I I won’t credit it all to Ingram because I think there’s like a good case to be made Barnes will just come back much better like he did after his uh after his sophomore year as well but Ingram’s definitely going to make life easier on him Um really it’s just like you look at what their offense looks like and the pieces there’s enough offensive talent on the floor now whereas most of the lineups we ran through last year except when they were like completely healthy it was a lot of like okay who’s getting helped off of where’s the d like a lot of doubles a lot of extra attention there just wasn’t enough offensive talent on the court and I think that’ll be a little different this time around yeah and I think one of the other things I look forward to is just there being the opportunity to stagger better And yeah I think you know some of some people view those young bench guys kind of becoming a bit of a benchmob 2.0 I see it a bit differently I do think they you know that benchmob 2.0 well the original benchmob was able to function as that fiveman unit whereas I think these young guys are going to need a Scotty or an Ingram or an RJ or a Quickly to really supplement them Also like during the year of the benchmob I went and I pulled lineup data for like a decade of the NBA and there was only one other instance of an allb unit being good like in in any sample Like we’re talking about like the bench mob and one lob city era Clippers bench and that’s it over the last over like that 10-year window of the NBA It’s not like it’s cool to call it the bench mob It’s cool to have five or six depth guys like not even the benchmob uh year There was another year where Norm was like the 11th man because they just had so many bodies That’s cool but I you do not need to see a fiveman bench unit when you have Scotty Barnes and RJ Barrett and Emanuel Quickley and uh Brandon Ingram Like you just you could you could make the case you’re going to run more than an eightman rotation but when those are four of your starters you could make the case that like two of those guys could be on the court at a at a good chunk of time Um you know I know I don’t know if you feel this way but like coming up on the Kyle and Demar Raptors like in my head it’s always like last four minutes of the first quarter is one star with the bench First four minutes of the second quarter is the other star with the bench And then everyone kind of staggers back in So that’s always how I have it in my head So I’ll be like “Oh okay Scotty’s going to Scotty and Bench to start the second Ingram and Bench to end the first.” But you don’t have to do it that way You could do Ingram and Quickly and bench or Ingram and Purle and bench and yeah there’s a lot you can do But the the main take there is like if let’s say even two of these because it’s not a lock that all of these young guys are going to you know when the role shrinks a little bit or the expectations are higher development isn’t linear and things like that They might not all be successes as sophomores but if even two of them are like really good ro like solid rotation players you’ve got depth that you just haven’t had the last couple years too So the staggering stuff gets it gets way easier when a Scotty Barnes & bench is not like four G-League guys you know and and I don’t mean that disrespectful to like the Colin Castletons Orlando Robinsons but I mean like when you’re planning out what a rotation looks like you know we’re at a point now where we could actually evaluate what the coaching staff is choosing to do It’s not there aren’t nine good NBA players on the roster anymore Yeah honestly Blake love this chat Thank you for staggering your workload so you can carry the show a little bit Jay’s off night buddy Yeah exactly But you know obviously everyone knows you for your Raptors work um and your Blue Jays work So with the Blue Jays season on let people know Yeah it’s uh I mean so Jay’s Talk Plus is 10:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m every day So same slot as uh as the Raptor show in the winter Jay’s are well before this weekend were playing really well They’d won 12 of 14 They’re in a playoff spot right now So that’s fun Um and then yeah next week next week I will bump off of Jays for two days to do NBA draft stuff or I’m gonna do like a like a live draft night show on 590 Uh that’ll be up as a podcast after and then uh we’ll see if enough happens on the the second day the second round of the draft But yeah it’ be be nice to swoop back in I I did a show like a Raptors show the night of the draft lottery and it was like the most deflated I think I’ve ever felt like live on air because I had all this stuff I had all my scouting ready to go on like 12 guys I had a couple different guests lined up and then they fall the ninth and like nobody wanted to hear anything other than like was it a conspiracy Was tanking worth it Um so yeah happy to that that all the scouting reports uh stuff uh at least for one guy I’ll get to dust it off Uh although watch trade down and and pick some guy I haven’t done the work on yet Exactly Or or the pick will be gone completely Yeah Well that would be a that would be for a reason that makes the show a lot more fun though so I’m I’m not ruling that one out Yeah Yeah Well again Blake thanks so much If you want to join in on this fun discussion that we just had head on over to the Locked On Raptors Discord The link is in the description Thank you for making Locked on Raptors your first listen of the day For your second listen check out the 2025 locked on NBA mockdraft a five episode series with the most comprehensive NBA draft analysis from NBA experts to college experts and NBA draft experts Find the 2025 locked on NBA mockdraft on NBA board and logged on NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts
Acquiring Brandon Ingram was a clear swing in the direction of the Toronto Raptors becoming a playoff team. How much does he really change? Sportsnet’s Blake Murphy joins Vivek Jacob to discuss Ingram’s potential fit next to Scottie Barnes, how he can help the team’s three-point shooting both with his own volume but also his playmaking, and finally where he fits in defensively.
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