Morning Coffee - Feb. 11, 2025
What is Ingrams fit?
Evaluating key areas that will determine Brandon Ingram’s fit with Raptors - Sportsnet
1. Ingram-Scottie Barnes pick-and-roll volume
On the surface, Ingram’s strengths both fit with the Raptors’ profile and don’t. What I mean is, Ingram offers something the Raptors are sorely lacking in individual shot-creation, but how he comes about that shot creation is atypical of how Toronto has preferred to play under head coach Darko Rajakovic.
To wit, the Raptors are near the bottom of the league (27th) in how often a pick-and-roll ball-handler finishes a possession with a shot, turnover or free throws, per Synergy. They use their screener — usually Jakob Poeltl — a bit more. Together, fewer than 20 per cent of their offensive possessions end immediately following a pick-and-roll action.
Some of that is personnel-based and some is system design. The Raptors don’t have a high-end pick-and-roll operator, particularly with Immanuel Quickley missing so much time. They are also thin on players who actually screen well, with their screening success rate (how often they make contact or force a redirect) among the worst in the league. Even when they do go to those actions, their ball-handlers are dead-last in field-goal percentage at the rim, with Toronto’s only real pick-and-roll strength coming via kick-outs to three-point shooters. If you don’t have great players who fit that play style, why wouldn’t you design a more motion- and delay-oriented offence to create opportunities another way?
Enter Ingram, who has historically excelled scoring and passing out of standard pick-and-roll. Last year, he was in the 72nd percentile for shooting volume and the 78th percentile for scoring efficiency out of pick-and-roll, and his effectiveness bumped to the 82nd percentile when we include passes to teammates. Ingram will have to alter his game some to fit the Raptors’ style, but they’ve long lacked someone who can take a quick screen and get their own bucket against a switch or with an advantage.
While Poeltl is the team’s best and most obvious screener, I’m interested in how often the Raptors ask Barnes to screen for Ingram.
Barnes is yet to establish himself as a great screener. He’s been asked to set just 3.2 per game this year, and the Raptors haven’t gotten much out of those actions. Given the team’s personnel, it’s been more fruitful to use Barnes as a handler and attack or take a switch to the mid post. Ball-handlers very rarely even find Barnes after he screens for them.
On talent, though, Barnes should become an effective screener. He’s strong and incredibly smart, with a long reach to present himself for passes on hard rolls to the rim. He’s also established his mid-range package more this year, opening up options out of the short roll.
Given the size of the Ingram-Barnes pairing, it’s unlikely many opponents will have two wing defenders they’re comfortable switching on to either, and that action could be a source of mismatches for both players. The Raptors offence with Barnes and Pascal Siakam trying to attack this way wasn’t all that bad (and was even better in theory), and while Ingram’s isn’t quite Siakam’s level all-around, he’s a more natural partner for Barnes given how much defences will have to respect his pull-up jumper from all around the floor.
There’s more to Ingram than pick-and-roll — he becomes their best isolation option at the end of a clock, and he’ll be their highest-volume driver other than maybe RJ Barrett — but the chemistry in this action is what I’m most curious about.
Fitting Brandon Ingram into Raptors’ offence will be Darko Rajaković’s defining task - The Athletic
If Rajaković can blend Ingram’s shot-making with the movement-centric attack the coach has been teaching, he could be in Toronto for a long time. If not, Rajaković —who has one more year on his contract after this one but could be in line for an extension — might have a hard time sticking around. Ingram’s arrival heightens expectations, going from “losses are lessons” to a desire to be functional and competitive. Figuring out how to marry Ingram’s skills with Barnes’ and RJ Barrett’s strengths will go a long way in determining if the Raptors get there.
“I think it’s going to be a process. I think there’s going to be a lot of work that we need to put in,” Rajaković told The Athletic at the University of Houston on Saturday. “(Ingram) is very open. He’s very willing to accept what this team is doing. And he already started using his voice with the team and talking in the film sessions. He’s opening up, which is great. I really respect that.
“All of us, we want the same thing. We want to win. And winning demands certain things. I think he will embrace that without any problem — ball movement and body moment. I think he’s a very, very unselfish player. I think that he’s a player that can see the court really well. And I think that’s going to be the driving force for us when we get him on the court.”
Before getting into the X’s and O’s, Ingram should help the Raptors solve their most glaring issue: half-court offence. The Raptors rank 22nd this year and 24th last year in the half court, according to Cleaning The Glass. To further drive that home, the Raptors rank just 23rd in offence when the scoring margin is within five points in the game’s final five minutes or overtime, according to nba.com. Not coincidentally, the Raptors’ 6-16 record featuring “clutch” situations is second to last in the league.
A lot of that is simply not having a player who can create his own shot whenever he wants. Barnes prefers to pass, and his touch in traffic is poor for a player of his stature, despite a notable improvement this year from the short midrange. If Barrett doesn’t get all the way to the paint, he prefers push shots to jumpers. His scoring efficiency is way down this year.
Barnes is shooting 43.5 percent on 23 field-goal attempts in clutch situations, while Barrett is at 38.6 percent on 44 attempts. (He has also made just 13 of his 22 free throws in those situations, something that has to improve.) Immanuel Quickley’s presence in just three of the Raptors’ 19 games featuring clutch situations has not helped. Quickley is the Raptors’ most dynamic shooting threat.
Ingram shot 48 percent on looks between 10 feet from the rim and the 3-point arc last year, an excellent number for tough shots. He doesn’t live at the free-throw line, but he shot better than 80 percent when he got there every year he was with the Pelicans.
“He takes pressure off all of us,” Barnes said. “Being able to score the ball, get downhill, teams got to respect him. He’s a respected player in this league, and with all the things that he can do, he’s gonna take pressure off RJ, gonna take pressure off me, gonna take pressure off (Quickley).”
While Ingram has to be able to adapt, it will be on Rajaković to make things work. Assuming all three of Ingram, Barnes and Barrett are in Toronto to start next season, it could be a crowded ecosystem. Barnes can operate as a handler or screener in the pick-and-roll, but his poor shooting makes it tough to leave him away from the main action. Barrett is most effective when catching the ball off a handoff near the paint with a full head of steam. Jakob Poeltl, who rarely shoots from outside the key, is often setting those screens.
What each Raptors rookie needs to work on as playing time increases after NBA trade deadline - Toronto Star
The four rookies — Jamal Shead, Ja’Kobe Walter, Jonathan Mogbo and Jamison Battle — will play enhanced roles over the final two months of the season.
Raptors president Masai Ujiri and GM Bobby Webster jettisoned almost every veteran reserve on the roster when they moved Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown and Davion Mitchell at last week’s trade deadline. They were obvious moves made to give Rajakovic no option but to play the kids.
The coach already has an idea of what each player will be asked to work on this summer from having seen them in practices so far. But nothing makes it more noticeable than seeing what happens in games at full speed against legitimate opposition.
“One thing is to have a coach tell you certain things, the other thing is you have to live (through) those in the game and you learn through your own mistakes,” Rajakovic said. “I think both are important.
“We have great guys there who are really open to learning new things and embracing new knowledge. So it’s a process and it all depends on the situation.”
There are some developmental needs that have emerged this season with each of the rookies.
Shead needs to learn how to orchestrate an NBA offence; Walter has to learn to face top-level defenders every night; Mogbo needs to become an NBA wing after playing as a big in his college career; and Battle is a shooter who needs to expand his game and become a better, more attentive defender.
All of their teammates see potential but also know there’s much work to do. The veterans must figure out how to best teach the rookies.
“There’s different ways different people learn,” Immanuel Quickley said. “Some people respond to tough love and others respond better when you put your arm around them. Just trying to find a balance of those.”
The most intriguing and most important to the team’s future is Shead. The Raptors have enough wings to allow Walter, Mogbo and Battle to grow at their pace, but Shead is the lone point guard on the roster behind Quickley and that puts pressure on him to get up to speed.
What's next for the Toronto Raptors: Draft lottery, play-in, salary cap woes? - Toronto Sun
Toronto will need to balance the primary need of the franchise, which is landing an elite prospect via next June’s draft, with getting at least a handful of games with the full existing core together to get a better sense of where the group is heading into the off-season.
Those players rarely had all been available at the same time (due mainly to starting point guard Immanuel Quickley missing most of the season) and now the most talented scorer on the team, newcomer Brandon Ingram, will have to be integrated into Darko Rajakovic’s system.
Ideally, Quickley, Ingram, Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl will get some reps together before the season ends — but not too many, if they want to have a good shot at Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey or the other top prospects.
The Raptors plan to give plenty of run to youngsters Ja’Kobe Walter, Gradey Dick, Jonathan Mogbo and Jamal Shead the rest of the way. That should help on two fronts, since they’ll get crucial experience and it will take players who are better right now out of the lineup.
“I think we’re super charged with the young guys,” Webster said. ‘”And I think that’s what you’ll see for the rest of the season, the growth of Jamal, the growth of Ja’Kobe, sort of sophomore jump of Gradey, these are what our eyes on”
As Webster said, “it’s still a rebuild … Takes time for players to come together. It takes time for them to ascend.”
Toronto’s youngsters will get all the minutes they can handle the rest of the season.