Los Angeles Lakers: Replacing Brandon Ingram once again

Already shorthanded with playmakers, the injury to Brandon Ingram hurts the Los Angeles Lakers’ offense for the near future.

The Los Angeles Lakers are playing their best basketball of the season, sitting at 15-9 and currently fifth in the Western Conference. They won all four games of their homestand, with the smallest margin of victory being eight points. The Lakers have an 11-3 record over their last 14 contests and are doing what good teams are supposed to do by beating less talented teams.

This has been on the back of LeBron James, who leads the team per game in minutes (34.8), points (28.4), rebounds (7.6), assists (6.6) and steals per game (1.3). There aren’t many players that singlehandedly change the landscape of a franchise as drastically as LeBron, and the Lakers are seeing his greatness on a nightly basis.

This relying so heavily on LeBron is a great strategy, but the downfall of some of his teams in the past has been the lack of secondary playmakers. The Lakers came into the season under the impression they had a quadrant of solid creators in LeBron, Lonzo Ball, Rajon Rondo and Brandon Ingram, but injuries to the latter two have put this team in an early season flux.

The Lakers were without Ingram and Rondo after being suspended for multiple games each, going 2-2 without Ingram and 2-1 without Rondo. These two are the best creators after LeBron on the team and their absence increases the load on LeBron and others on the team. With Ingram spraining his left ankle on Nov. 5 against the San Antonio Spurs and missing the upcoming road trip to join Rondo on the bench, the Lakers are once again severely limited in creating players.

Yes, Lonzo is an exceptional passer and improving in the half-court in terms of navigating the pick-and-roll, but it’s a lot to ask him to initiate an offense for long stretches. Lance Stephenson is too inconsistent and doesn’t keep the ball moving a great deal. Josh Hart and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are limited outside of spot-up shooting and straight-line driving.

To counter the loss of Ingram, expect to see LeBron’s minutes hover around the 40-minute mark like he did in the game Ingram went down on Nov. 5. James is averaging a career low in minutes per game despite putting up gaudy numbers this season, but even he knows his load will have to increase in the short-term with Ingram and Rondo out.

This sounds crazy given the start the Lakers had this season, but they will have to win with their defense. The Lakers’ personnel thrive in the open floor and pushing the tempo to get transition opportunities. This doesn’t allow opposing defenses to set up and would be a good way to offset the lack of half-court creators.

The best way to increase these opportunities is forcing turnovers and getting stops. Players like Kyle Kuzma and Hart are best grabbing rebounds and going coast-to-coast. Lonzo is also at his best in transition and everybody knows LeBron is a freight train with the ball in his hands, especially with a full head of steam.

A positive aspect about Ingram going down is the Lakers have some experience playing without him this season. It’s not ideal, but they were deep in certain positions heading into the season and having the best player in the world increase his workload is a pretty decent backup plan.

The best the Lakers can hope for is Ingram returning after this quick road trip and potentially missing the Miami Heat game at home on Dec. 10. After that, the Lakers play four games in six nights. Their opponents aren’t the toughest group of teams for that stretch, but the road has been a struggle for Los Angeles all season and relying on LeBron James to carry the load for that part of the schedule isn’t ideal.

Injuries are part of every sport, and in a sport with only five members sharing the floor at a time, these injury losses are felt the most. Brandon Ingram hasn’t reached expectations at this point of the season, but his defense and scoring flashes are a major part of why the Los Angeles Lakers are where they are now. It will be interesting to see how they hold up without his services once again.