NEW ORLEANS – In the midst of their most successful season as professionals, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram got a taste of what it feels like to hit rock bottom.
Williamson’s experience came in December after the New Orleans Pelicans suffered a 44-point loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the semifinals of the inaugural NBA Season Tournament. At the time, it was the biggest NBA stage Williamson had ever played on, and he and his team made a big splash.
As a result, the face of the franchise faced a wave of scrutiny from fans and the media over his physical condition, his commitment to winning and his abilities as a leader. After the season, he admitted that it was “one of those things he needed to experience” because he “wasn’t looking at anyone else. I looked at myself.”
He got in better shape, improved his concentration and played the best basketball of his career down the stretch of the regular season before suffering a hamstring injury in the Pelicans’ Play-In tournament loss to the Lakers. Above all, he responded to adversity as stars are expected to do.
Now it’s Ingram’s turn to dig himself out of a similar hole.
His lowest moment came during the Pelicans’ first-round sweep at the hands of the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder. While Ingram was out of rhythm after returning from a knee injury that sidelined him for a month before the start of the playoffs, his performance in that series was his worst stretch in a Pelicans uniform. In four games against Oklahoma City, he averaged 14.3 points and 3.3 assists while shooting 34.5 percent from the field. He made Thunder forward Luguentz Dort look like the greatest defender of all time.
After Ingram’s ineffectiveness against one of the Western Conference’s best teams, now and in the future, it didn’t take long for questions to begin to arise about his future. With Ingram entering the final season of his current contract, those whispers became alarm sirens. Add in Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin saying “this will not be a summer of complacency” for the Pelicans, and all eyes turned to Ingram, given his contract situation, recent struggles and Williamson’s rise. There’s no doubt the Pelicans need to make some roster changes, and their best way to add an important piece is to move Ingram in a trade this summer.
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But I have a question for everyone who has been so active in the trade machine over the last month: Is there any way for the Pelicans to trade Ingram and come out of that deal a better team than they were with the group they won 49 games? this season?
I am not convinced.
While the Ingram-Williamson duo has been far from perfect since arriving in the summer of 2018, they showed potential this season as a tandem once they were finally healthy enough to play together for extended periods. They looked even more dangerous once Williamson secured himself during the second half of the season, at least until Ingram’s bone bruise in late March.
Lineups that included those two with some combination of Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III, Dyson Daniels and Naji Marshall made New Orleans a long, athletic unit and one of the most disruptive defenses in the league. As overmatched as they looked against OKC without Williamson, these pieces can make New Orleans a tough playoff matchup for anyone if they can ever get their star to suit up in the postseason.
While Williamson is expected to appear more often as the primary ball-handler heading into next season, having a second option like Ingram, who can score and, increasingly, create for his teammates in one-on-one situations It is invaluable. This is the same guy who averaged 27 points per game in the playoffs against a Suns team that won 64 games in 2022.
Even though Ingram was terrible against the Thunder in this year’s postseason, assuming he’s the wrong guy to put alongside Williamson long-term seems shortsighted after all the progress he’s shown in previous seasons.
Keeping him close will be difficult. Ingram, who will turn 27 in September, is eligible for a four-year, $208 million extension this summer. Considering his current and future financial situation, the Pelicans are unlikely to offer him that max deal this offseason, league sources told The Athletic.
With Murphy also hoping to sign a lucrative extension with New Orleans this summer, having Ingram and Murphy on the books with new deals, along with the combined $84 million owed to Williamson, McCollum and Jones in 2025-26, would almost certainly make the Pelicans a luxury tax team in the 2025-26 season regardless of how they fill out the rest of the roster. This franchise has not paid the luxury tax in its 22 years of existence.
Still, Ingram’s role as a stabilizing presence on and off the court, especially amid past drama surrounding Williamson’s injuries and his relationship with the organization, has been integral to players like Murphy, Jones and José Alvarado. become key contributors. Removing Ingram from the locker room would represent a major shakeup for a young team still working to find itself.
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And, again, it’s hard to see how any of the potential Ingram deals often suggested in recent weeks return a player of his caliber to improve New Orleans on the court.
In any deal for Ingram, the Pelicans would likely look to address the two biggest holes on the roster: center and point guard. Center is the most immediate need, with Jonas Valančiūnas likely leaving in unrestricted free agency, but New Orleans could only replace Ingram’s offensive production if he adds a dynamic guard to play alongside Williamson. The only problem is that there aren’t many good options for the Pelicans to pursue.
New Orleans was in talks with the Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers before the trade deadline last season, and they seem like obvious options for a potential Ingram trade. Both teams have landed big, young guards who could be available for the right deal, and although the two teams were separated by 13 games in the standings, both are looking for a change after tumultuous ends to their seasons.
A deal with Cleveland centered on Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen would fill New Orleans’ biggest needs for young All-Star talent, but would Cleveland be willing to give up both for a package centered on Ingram? Meanwhile, getting just one of them back in a deal with Ingram wouldn’t be as appealing to New Orleans. While Garland has shown the potential to make a significant leap on a team that gives him more ball responsibility, he may not fulfill that desire playing alongside Williamson. Additionally, having Garland, McCollum, Alvarado and Jordan Hawkins in the same defensive zone would make the Pelicans small and defensively challenged on the perimeter.
Any deal with the Hawks is more likely to focus on Dejounte Murray than Trae Young. Young is still owed more than $137 million on his contract over the next three seasons, so trading Young and Ingram does nothing to resolve the Pelicans’ financial obstacles. Additionally, there are cultural concerns about replacing a locker room mainstay like Ingram with a dominant on-court presence like Young.
Murray’s length and athleticism fit the attributes the Pelicans have prioritized on the backcourt, and his contract (four years and $114 million total, including a player option for 2027-28) fits more clearly into the future salary structure. from New Orleans. However, Murray’s marriage to Young in Atlanta has been largely sporadic because he, like Garland, is much more comfortable playing in a system that gives him freedom to control the ball. How good would he be in New Orleans if he was asked to operate in an offense that uses Williamson most of the game?
A move with Atlanta centered on Murray and either 23-year-old backup center Onyeka Okongwu (who just signed a four-year, $62 million extension) or 31-year-old starter Clint Capela (who will be owed 22 .3 million dollars in 2024). 25 in the last year of his contract) would be much cheaper. But it’s hard to sell the idea that a team whose second option is Murray, McCollum or Murphy is a genuine threat in the West. Even if the pieces fit together a little better, the playoffs are about talent. A deal like that is a downgrade of talent to avoid the luxury tax.
Could Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns be an option after his lackluster performance late in the Timberwolves’ playoff run? Even if Towns were, trading Ingram for him would require a huge financial commitment from the Pelicans, as Towns still has more than $159 million guaranteed on his contract over the next three seasons.
If anything, the Timberwolves offer a case study in patience considering their success in reaching the Western Conference Finals this season.
The Timberwolves are another franchise that has historically avoided the luxury tax at all costs, but have so far committed to their current group despite owing more than $174 million to the top six players on the roster next season. They could have moved Towns last summer after a disappointing 2022-23 season to avoid being in this current cost situation. Instead, they believed in the talent of the squad and that paid off with their most successful season in two decades.
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There’s no guarantee that keeping Ingram and Williamson together for another season will result in anything more than another first-round exit. However, recent seasons have repeatedly demonstrated the value of continuity and positional versatility in the playoffs. Ingram brings both.
One risk of the Pelicans keeping Ingram is that they won’t find a contract extension number that suits both parties. So, Ingram could decide to leave in free agency in 2025 or be traded to a franchise willing to make a financial commitment to him that New Orleans may be reluctant to make.
But Ingram and the Pelicans have been working to build something for the past five seasons. Last year, before Ingram and Williamson’s late-season injuries, all that hard work finally resulted in the success this fan base has craved for years. If Ingram and the Pelicans were to ignore that progress and pull the plug right now, it would feel like a mistake on both sides.
Unless there is a clear path to improving the roster, trading Ingram is a bad idea for the Pelicans.
(Top photo: Stephen Lew / USA Today)
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