Early Returns on Brandon Ingram

Having watched Ingram for about 3/4 of a season now, I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are on Ingram as compared to your expectations before the season.

To me, the major positives and negatives are as follows.

Positives

• He's been healthy. Has only missed one game this season as a somewhat injury-prone player.
• Defense. He's been a neutral to slight positive defensively, especially accounting for his strong defensive rebounding. He has previously been regarded as a bit of a liability, but I haven't found that to be the case.
• Catch-and-shoot 3s. He's at almost 40% for the season on 3.7 3PA per game. Compared to a lot of offensive creators, that is actually pretty good. Many of the players above him are specialists. A lot of good players struggle to add c&s to their game, even when it would be beneficial for the team (see the Lakers).

Negatives

• Medicare efficiency. His efficiency is slightly below-average for the league, which is not ideal for a primary scorer.
• Tough shot diet. Related to his efficiency, Ingram still takes a very tough shot diet. 55% of shots come from mid-range, with 28% of those shots coming from long mid-range. He's good (but not great) at making those shots, but it doesn't make up for the lack of attempts at the rim and from 3.
• Mediocre play-making. I don't think Ingram does a great job of leveraging his offensive ability to create opportunities for teammates. Even against the Knicks, when he was making everything in the first half, that doesn't seem to open up as much for teammates as it does for other star players.
• Crunch time offense. So far, it has been bad. These statistics can vary a lot from year to year, so maybe it's not totally significant, but it hasn't been great so far.

Basically, Ingram was brought in to be the main scorer on a Raptors team that has struggled with half-court offense. I would say he's been a bit underwhelming in that particular role. He's still just a good (but not great) offensive player, despite being a very good shot maker. He just doesn't reliably create easy shots for himself or teammates.

The things Ingram has done well this season speak to his ability to fit in alongside other good players. He's been a decent defender and has reliably made his open shots. The problem is, the Raptors don't currently have enough offensive talent to benefit from that.

Basically I think Ingram needs to be the second best offensive player, which might mean he's the 3rd best player overall, on a championship-level team. There is a big gap between Ingram and the best offensive player on actual contending teams. If the Raptors do need to bring in an offensive player above BI, that is a very tough assignment from a team-building standpoint.