Brandon Ingram Believes Raptors ‘Have Everything’ Defensively

Brandon Ingram feels the Toronto Raptors have the opportunity to make some noise in a wide open Eastern Conference.

In a wide-ranging interview with Marc J. Spears of Andscape, Ingram discussed his love for New Orleans, adjusting to Toronto and some of the difficulties he’s faced the last few years.

“This team can be whatever we want it to be,” Ingram said of the Raptors. “We have everything on the defensive end. We play hard. The next thing is execution over and over again on the offensive end. … The East is wide open this [upcoming season].

“We have a chance to be better but we’ve got to expedite it.”

Toronto won 30 games last season, despite Immanuel Quickley missing 49 games and Jakob Poeltl missing 24. Ingram didn’t play a single game in a Raptors uniform last season. If those three can each play over 65 games, there’s reason to believe the team could be meaningfully better.

Ingram has told Toronto media he expects the team to be in the playoffs this year.

Ingram Sounds More Confident In Defense Than Offense

Based on Ingram’s comments, it appears as though he recognizes the Raptors will need some time to jell offensively. The projected starting five of Quickley, RJ Barrett, Ingram, Scottie Barnes and Poeltl has yet to play a single NBA minute together.

In the two seasons head coach Darko Rajakovic has been in charge, the team has had a bottom-five offense. The Raptors regularly get out in transition but don’t score efficiently on the break, don’t take a lot of threes and shoot poorly at the rim.

These are perhaps the areas Ingram feels progress needs to be expedited most for the Raptors to compete at a high level.

From an individual standpoint, Barnes is the biggest concern in preseason, having shot just 6-of-30 from the field thus far.

Ingram, on the other hand, is looking very much like the player the Raptors hoped to acquire. He has scored 60 points in just 77 minutes across three games.

Pelicans Too Concerned About Ingram’s Durability

Ingram is happy to now be in Toronto, partly because he received an extension he wasn’t going to get from the Pelicans. He agreed to a three-year, $120 million deal this past summer with the Raptors.

Ingram hoped to get a max contract extension from the Pelicans but then-president David Griffin indicated he was better off finding a sign-and-trade partner that would give him what he was looking for.

The main issue the Pelicans appeared to have with Ingram was his durability. During his time there, he played 61 and 62 games in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, which were both 72-game seasons. He then played just 55 and 45 games in 2021-22 and 2022-23 before bouncing back with 64 games in 2023-24.

After being unable to find a path toward an extension following the 2023-24 season, Ingram was expecting — without asking or wanting — to be traded. Toronto and Atlanta were his biggest suitors at last season’s trade deadline and the Raptors got the deal over the line.