It’s still not clear when former all-star forward Brandon Ingram will make his debut with the Toronto Raptors.
There are 23 games left this season, and as Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said shortly after the team acquired Ingram from the New Orleans Pelicans, it’s possible he doesn’t play in any of those contests. More likely, Ingram’s ankle issue, which has sidelined him since December 7, will allow him to at least see a bit of action so the Raptors can evaluate what they have in this core heading into the off-season.
The Raptors and Ingram agreed on a three-year contract extension worth $120 million U.S. shortly after the trade, so there’s no incentive for either side to push a return too quickly.
Rajakovic provided a bit of an update on Ingram before the Raptors lost against Boston on Tuesday. The team fell to the Indiana Pacers the next night.
“He’s rehabbing, he’s picking up on the stuff that he’s doing. Our medical, our coaches are learning him at the same time, what he’s capable of doing, where the areas for improvement are,” Rajakovic said.
“We break down his recovery and his plan in two-week chunks and after two weeks we give an update how he’s doing and how he’s progressing.”
By that schedule, there will be 17 games to go when the next Ingram update arrives, ahead of a visit by Rajakovic’s predecessor Nick Nurse and his free-falling Philadelphia 76ers.
“He’s been very open, we have good communication, talking about a lot of stuff. I’m planning to meet with him again on this road trip just to continue to watch film and dive into his game and how that translates to our team,” Rajakovic said, noting how Ingram’s reputation as a great shooter who takes and makes some of the most difficult shots in the NBA, could blend with Toronto’s move the ball quickly schemes.
When the schedule resumed after the all-star break Rajakovic had discussed his earlier conversations with Ingram. “I told him that he needs to go home (to New Orleans) to pack his things, that he needs to find where he’s gonna live in Toronto, and to come back with a mindset that we’re starting with work right away. I think it’s very important like, obviously he’s limited with what he can do with his ankle and recovery, but his upper body lift, all of that he can get on that right now,” Rajakovic had said earlier this month.
“And he’s been in a great state of mind. He’s very receptive to everything we’re doing now. So I’m really hopeful that this next period over here he’s going to be able to ramp up his workouts, and also we’ll be spending a lot of time watching film and watching his tape, watching our tape, getting him to understand what we’re trying to achieve, how we want to play on our both ends on the floor.”
As for the team as a whole, Rajakovic also outlined right after the break what the overall outlook is for the team and it makes sense that it goes beyond wins and losses, given the front office’s goal of landing a high draft pick this summer.
“I think we have objective goals for each of the players, where we want to see them develop, where we want to see those guys growing,” Rajakovic had said. “And that’s the only thing that we’re going to be looking at. It’s not necessarily outcome of the game or we win and now everything is great, if we lose, everything is bad. We really need to focus to see those marginal gains and improvements with each of the players. We’ve got to approach it that way and being able to see the bigger picture and how this investment of minutes and playing time and investing in the young guys and to understand what it’s going to be at the return point for us,” Rajakovic said.
Since Rajakovic said that, he’s given Gradey Dick, 21 years old, 30.2 minutes a game, rookie big man Jonathan Mogbo 20.5, fellow rookies Ja’Kobe Walter and Jamal Shead just shy of 19 minutes a night each and you can probably expect those numbers to rise moving forward.
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