Los Angeles Lakers: Brandon Ingram’s mid-range affinity and its impact

The Los Angeles Lakers have been a mixed bag in the early going of the season. We take a look at the play of Bradon Ingram and how his mid-range affinity impacts his game.

Brandon Ingram is the second most important player on the Los Angeles Lakers in terms of long-term success. If this team is ever going to be a real contender, Ingram must become the star he has the potential to be.

If his performance through 16 games of the Lakers‘ season is any indication of how his development is trending, it does not appear that this is the year he makes that leap. Not to say he hasn’t improved at all, because he has–specifically on the defensive end. But, it doesn’t appear he is quite ready to reach star level offensively.

In fairness, Ingram has notoriously had slow starts to seasons, so he may still see an uptick in performance in the coming weeks.

Much of Ingram’s early struggles can likely be attributed to him still trying to work out the kinks that come during a player’s first season playing alongside LeBron James. Even so, there is one glaring issue that has arose this year that is of his own doing– his shot selection.

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Ingram has fallen in love with the mid-range jumper this season. 48 percent of his shots have come from the mid-range, this being up from 42 percent last season, per Cleaning The Glass.

This hasn’t taken away from his 3-point attempts (13 percent this year and 12 percent last year) but instead, it has taken away from his biggest strength, his finishing at the rim. His percentage of shots at the rim has dropped from 45 percent last season to 39 percent now.

*all stats are from prior to Sunday’s game against the Miami Heat*

In theory, Ingram’s off the dribble mid-range shot should one day be a strength of his, due to his length and touch. For this reason, it makes sense why he is trying to implement this into his game more heavily this season.

What doesn’t make sense is the shots of this kind that he is taking. Too many times this season Ingram has tried to force these kinds of shots, even going as far to attempt them after an ineffective pump fake that allowed the defense to take away the shot.

How often Ingram is attempting these types of shots is currently the most detracting part of his game, aside from maybe his lack of 3-point shooting.

The thing is, Ingram is a solid mid-range shooter. He has shot 43 percent from this area this season (71st percentile for his position.) This percentage could be even higher if he were to limit the number of bad shots he is taking and only take the good shots the defense gives him.

This play is the perfect example of the kinds of off the dribble mid-range shots Ingram should be taking. Evan Fournier presses too far into Ingram’s body and Ingram takes advantage of this by turning the corner on the defender, putting him in a position where he has to try and catch up to Ingram on the drive.

Ingram recognizes this and uses a simple pull-up to send the defender flying towards the rim, allowing Ingram to elevate higher than Fournier could ever hope to reach off the recovery for the easy bucket.

This is the type of shot the best scorers in the league make on a regular basis. The type of shot that can best utilize his length, handle, and shooting ability. If Ingram begins to take and make this on a regular basis while avoiding the bad shots shown earlier, his ability as a scorer will improve greatly.

His strong off the dribble shot and already impressive ability to finish around the rim will work together to enhance one another. But, he has to establish the threat to drive for this to work, which he hasn’t done as well as he can this season.

The silver lining to this whole situation is that this is likely an issue that will fix itself over time. Ingram is a young player still learning how to leverage his length to his benefit, and figuring out what kinds of shots you can get off over defenders is a big part of that.

Learning the limitations of his body and shot like this is a necessary evil for his development. In fact, we are already starting to see Ingram reap the rewards of this development by trial and error.

Both of these clips show Ingram making two tough shots where he uses his length to his advantage.

The first shows him using the threat to drive around the defender to hit the mid-range shot after the defender gives him some room in an effort to take away said driving ability. Nikola Vucevic was in the type of defensive conundrum I described earlier that is created when the defender has to respect Ingram’s ability to score from multiple levels.

The second clip shows Ingram hitting a simple turn around fadeaway over Evan Fournier. Despite the solid defensive effort, Fournier simply didn’t have the wingspan needed to prevent Ingram from hitting the fadeaway.

This is the type of shot that Ingram should begin to hit consistently once he figures out exactly how far his length will take him. As mentioned earlier, we see Ingram take and miss bad shots now so he can hit shots like these going forward– at least in theory.

Brandon Ingram, undoubtedly, has a problem with his shot selection, particularly in the mid-range. But the flashes of excellence are there that show how this may not be a long-term issue. Even then, the sooner the issue is eradicated the better.

As of now, we’re seeing both the good and bad that comes from Ingram’s infatuation with the mid-range– but more of the latter. But with a few improvements, we may soon see more of the former, leading to Ingram becoming the gifted scorer he was envisioned to be coming out of Duke.