Los Angeles Lakers forward Brandon Ingram has faced constant comparisons to Kevin Durant over the past year. It boils down to some pretty simple elements.
- Ingram is crazy, super skinny, and so was Durant at his age.
- Ingram is a tall, lanky small forward whose best asset is the effortless way he scores, which is exactly what Durant was at his age.
- Most comparisons are flawed and problematic when it comes to evaluating 19-year-old NBA players.
There are a huge number of ways they are not the same, chief among them being in the quantitative sense that Ingram is not nearly the caliber of player Durant was at that age. But one important person disagrees with that assessment: Kevin Durant.
Asked Kevin Durant about Brandon Ingram today and he said Ingram's even farther along than he was at that age, really impressed.
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) July 19, 2016
On the surface, this seems crazy. Durant was a phenom. You went to watch Durant in college and he blew your hair straight back. You watched Brandon Ingram in college and said "Gosh, he's good." That gap is considerable. Durant was drafted No. 2 in a draft that was thought to have two future Hall-of-Famers at the top, vs. this year's draft which features two players at the top who are debated as potential future All-Stars.
However... it's kind of interesting to look at the numbers and try to see what Durant's saying.
Durant averaged 25.8 points on 18.5 shots per game along with 11.1 rebounds and 1.3 assist per game on 47 percent shooting at Texas.
Ingram averaged 17.3 points on 13.4 shots per game along with 6.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists on 44 percent shooting at Duke.
So Durant's a better scorer, in volume, but it's notable that on roughly the same number of 3-point attempts, Ingram actually shot better from range than Durant. Durant's game kind of evolved when he reached the NBA, and he expanded to be more of a 3-point threat, but his game was always grounded in the mid-range (which will inevitably change now that he's a Splash Cousin, or whatever).
The biggest rave about Ingram coming out of college was his polish. He's a very developed, fluid player, and so there's that aspect of it. Durant was a bit more raw in terms of how to fit into a team concept. He was absurdly talented, but it was always within the framework of his own game.
Still, even if Durant was just trying to be nice, he and everyone else needs to steer clear of comparing Ingram favorably to KD. Ingram faces enough pressure as a No. 2 pick going to the Lakers in the post-Kobe era. Trying to live up to a comparison of one of the greatest individual scorers of all time (which Durant assuredly is) will only compound that problem. But it's a good sign that Durant has great things to say about him nonetheless.
