When Brandon Ingram plays, the Toronto Raptors cannot break through a hard ceiling placed above their heads.
When Brandon Ingram is unavailable, the floor falls out.
It's the classic conundrum: the Raptors can't live with Ingram, and they can't live without him. What's a team to do?
The Raptors can't win with Brandon Ingram
In Game 5, the Raptors battled gamely with the Cleveland Cavaliers despite being down multiple key players. They entered the game without Immanuel Quickley; their starting point guard will miss the entirety of Round 1 due to injury. During the game, All-Star forward Brandon Ingram aggravated a heel injury and was ruled out of the game after 11 minutes.
It's not as if Ingram was lighting it up when he exited the game. He was 0-for-2 in his 11 minutes, with his only point coming from the free-throw line. He did contribute a block, but his defense wasn't particularly impactful as the Cavaliers came roaring back to take the lead early in the second quarter.
There was little reason to think that Ingram was suddenly going to start playing like the star they desperately needed. In Game 4, the Raptors won a sloppy game against the Cavaliers; he scored 23 points, but needed 23 shots to do so, and did not record a single assist. He is supposed to be an efficient playmaking forward; instead he has become an inefficient tough shot-maker.
He is prone to lapses in attention on defense, and he has never translated his length and athleticism into being an impact defender. The Raptors have had to bench Ingram at multiple points in the series, and their best moments have often come with Ingram off the court. Putting Jamison Battle in the lineup, for example, allowed the Raptors to execute an aggressive switch-heavy defensive scheme with Battle, Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles in the frontcourt.
The Raptors can't win without Brandon Ingram
When Ingram went out on Wednesday, however, suddenly the Raptors were hard-pressed to fill out the rotation. With Quickley already sidelined, it meant heavy minutes for Ja'Kobe Walter and Jamal Shead, and Battle was forced to play a long stretch. No one was ready to take the ball and create a shot.
With Dean Wade, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen all rotating through, there were options to take away the easy shots from Scottie Barnes. Who else was going to create a shot? RJ Barrett was fantastic, but the Raptors needed another option. Walter only took two 2-pointers all game. Shead was jacking 3-pointers, going 4-for-10.
When the game slowed down, and the score was tight, the Raptors needed a source of average offensive creation. That's what Ingram was at least capable of providing, and he was unavailable. And the depth of the Raptors is compromised because of how much money they have committed to the likes of Ingram and Jakob Poeltl.
The Brandon Ingram trade was a mistake
Trading for Brandon Ingram was a mistake. Sure, he made the All-Star team in an inexplicable decision by the NBA, but he is a terrible fit next to Scottie Barnes, he has underachieved for years despite being billed as a top-flight option, and he is making $40 million a year.
Toronto may not have given up very much for Ingram -- a potentially lucrative first-round pick from the Indiana Pacers, but they didn't know at the time that the Pacers were going to bottom out this year -- but having him on the team, making $40 million, has costs. They couldn't use that money to make the overall roster better in a way that fits with Barnes.
That will be the challenge for the front office moving forward. They could come back and win the series; it's within the realm of possibility, although less likely if Ingram misses Game 6, or if Barnes is hampered by the lower leg injury that slowed him in Game 5. But their ceiling is capped by having Ingram on the team.
They need him right now, because they don't have enough without him. But then they need to get rid of him moving forward to reach their potential. And that is a tough pill to swallow - and makes trading for him look like a terrible long-term decision.
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