New Orleans Pelicans: Brandon Ingram’s contract situation

The New Orleans Pelicans can extend a qualifying offer to Brandon Ingram, but they have to make sure he’s up for the challenge the contract would bring.

After a breakout year with the New Orleans Pelicans, Brandon Ingram will be in the running for this season’s Most Improved Player award. The 22-year-old rising star thrived in his first year in the Big Easy as he leads the team in points per game with 24.3 and becoming their go-to player for the majority of the year.

In the current climate, however, attention leers towards the coming offseason with lingering questions surrounding Ingram’s future in New Orleans.

Ingram’s rookie deal signed with the Los Angeles Lakers saw its final guaranteed year kick in this season, meaning that the forward will enter restricted free agency this coming summer.

With the development that he showed in this, his first All-Star season, he’ll likely get paid sooner rather than later. Right now it would be believed that the Pelicans will be intending on giving him that long-term deal to cement his place in this rebuild, but nothing is set in stone at this moment.

With everything to do with the NBA and sports in general, for that matter, up in the air as we speak, the effects of the pandemic on salaries, etc won’t be known for some time. What we do know is there are plenty of contract situations that will need to be sorted out before the beginning of next season and Ingram’s is one of these.

On the season thus far, Ingram has a true shooting percentage of 59.0 percent, signaling his most efficient and most dominant scoring year so far in his career by a ton. He got his outside scoring back on track this past year, jumping from 33.0 percent in LA last season to 38.7 percent throughout this season.

He’s become far more physical a player as he’s averaging 6.3 rebounds per game and has developed as a shot creator with 4.3 assists per game. He’s been the spearhead of this Pelican’s offense and carried them heavily up until Zion Williamson recovered from his injury.

Many are speculating that Ingram should be getting the max from the Pels this summer, and it’s easy to see why. He’s coming off an outstanding year, his ceiling is extremely high and he’s shown tremendous potential in areas you wouldn’t think of him thriving in.

Ingram seems legit, but questions over whether or not the Pelicans should commit to him are fairly asked. Yes, he’s had a massive year and he’ll more than likely be doing this for years to come. But, with Jrue Holiday’s large contract and plenty to still do to become competitive in the Western Conference, New Orleans needs to be sure that this is their guy.

If the Pelicans are going to commit to Ingram, they need to do it now and show him that they’re going to make him the man. Easier said than done with Zion just starting out there.

Ingram and Williamson would provide New Orleans with the two biggest building blocks the franchise needs to kick on from here. Then it’s a matter of finding what they need and surrounding them with it.

Ingram’s defensive game isn’t up to scratch and you can’t really tell whether or not he’s going to become a plus defender, but his offensive game outweighs the current doubts. Zion has superstar potential but you can never jump the gun too quickly. Defense is needed as well as shooting in New Orleans, but what good is that if you don’t have your centerpieces?

What we do know is that the Pelicans need to make up their minds soon. Giving Ingram the money seems like something that should be done. They’ve been trying to get to a similar situation for years now and it seems like they’re finally there.

Either that or they completely blow it up again and go into the free agency market to get another star, but the situation for the Pelicans is now a healthy one.