As someone who writes about basketball and the Toronto Raptors myself, it's inevitable that I will analyze things through a particular lens. Either in favor of the team or, perhaps, being a little too harsh. But again, that's the beauty of having a platform to discuss hoops and Raptors basketball in particular. I truly believe the passion I see in Raptors Nation is largely unmatched (maybe a little toxic too at times, haha), and I try my best to articulate those fan sentiments and, of course, my own takes into these pieces.
That said, I always want to keep things reasonable and realistic about expectations and the results we've already seen — or at least, I try my best to do so. That's my ultimate goal and, in essence, our mission statement here at FanSided. Which brings me to the controversial subject of this piece. Recently, a list came out courtesy of Bleacher Report that definitely seemed pretty loaded for a good chunk of Raptors Nation, especially since one of their own was given a title I’m sure no NBA player ever wants attached to their name.
Bleacher Report labels Brandon Ingram the NBA's most overrated player
Titled "The 10 Most Overrated NBA Players This Season," Raptors star Brandon Ingram earned the unfortunate honor of topping the list as the most overrated player in the entire league. As my colleague Quinn Everts pointed out in his own piece, this label has followed Ingram for much of his career.
That said, I’ll give the author of the article, Andy Bailey, some credit. He started Ingram’s section with this line: "This is a dubious honor that Brandon Ingram is under no obligation to worry about, but his All-Star nod and the general perception of 20-point-per-game scorers contributed to him being this season’s most overrated player."
Again, when it comes to providing NBA commentaries, a lot of this personalized stuff (if not all of it) is meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, I feel like Brandon Ingram and his impact on this Raptors team are being done a disservice in a list like this.
I think that Brandon Ingram, if anything, has been adequately rated, both by the majority of Raptors faithful, by Raptors pundits and mainstream basketball analysts alike. And honestly, I think there's a stronger case to suggest that Brandon Ingram has become 'underrated' more than anything. Remember that BI only made it into the All-Star game as an injury replacement. Before that, NBA peers and analysts were trying to plea his case as an All-Star worthy player until he finally earned that honor.
But can I see where the motivation is coming from, though? Absolutely.
Having gone through the ups and downs of this 2025-26 campaign, you can say what you want about Ingram’s presence not being felt on the defensive end or his impact outside of scoring. But it would be foolish to ignore the fact that he leads the team in scoring and has been the offensive spark this team was desperately searching for. And the results don't lie either. Toronto is in a playoff position because of it, whether or not that is entirely due to Ingram's efforts or not — he's had an effect.
The author says this at the end of Ingram's section: "But Toronto's success has a lot more to do with Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and Sandro Mamukelashvili than Ingram's reputation suggests."
If we're talking about Scottie Barnes, absolutely. But for IQ and Mamu, I’m not as sure about that. All due respect to those two gentlemen, but I think Ingram has been far more important to the Raptors’ success by leaps and bounds. That brings me to my gripe with this Ingram perception. What exactly are we expecting from Brandon Ingram? I think it’s pretty clear by now that Ingram is out there to get you buckets. If he can do a bit more than that, then that’s just a bonus. I’d confidently say that Raptors fans have come to accept this, know this, and he does his job accordingly (at least most nights).
Calling him overrated is baffling because I truly feel that most Raptors discussions focus more on Scottie Barnes. They praise him and celebrate him as the defensive backbone of this team (obviously warranted), and it even surprised me when I saw the Barnes talksshift to a more negative light recently. Barnes is largely the darling of the Raptors community. We acknowledge Ingram too, but is anyone really overhyping him to the point where they believe he’s some megastar?
He’s just a good player, and for most, I think that's honestly fine. We understand the transaction that comes with having Brandon Ingram on this team. It’s also kind of funny that this piece went up right after Ingram put up a season-best performance against the Miami Heat.
Maybe we as Raptors watchers and fans need to reassess how we view BI and what we expect from him. When we really break down who he is as a player, you can make the case that he’s been pretty solid in that role. He’s far from perfect, and his player archetype might not be the most appealing, but I think this is less about him being overrated. If you want to argue that he gets paid way too much for not doing enough, then there’s a more tangible point there.
Calling him 'overrated', however, would just be unfair.