Ingram was no worse than Jaylen Brown, so I can’t argue if you left both of them off the All-Junior teams.
Regarding Zubac:
Having watched Zubac through three seasons, I will say that Zubac was unplayable except for a couple of games over the course of his first two years with the Lakers.
His lack of aggressiveness, poor defense, and slowness to react when he was in traffic were all bad signs about his future.
Then he played decently for the month of December when the other Lakers centers were sick or injured, and somehow he was a new player.
With the Clippers, he has a better coach, and is surrounded by a bunch of junk yard dogs who defend and rebound.
Regarding Ingram:
As far as his defensive rating, according to NBA.com/stats, his Def Rtg for the season is 108.0. It’s not great but it still better than a lot of overpaid cough-Wiggings-cough players who are horribly inefficient scorers. If you’re going to cherry pick a 116 Def Rtg out of February and March, it’s ridiculous because the entire team’s defensive rating was 116.8 during that time period.
Having watched all his games, Ingram was an above average on-ball defender, but horrible when it comes to fighting through screens, or playing help defense.
Ingram is one of those guys who needs a lot of player development. Magic and the Lakers told him he has to be a 20 ppg scorer, so he has formed a lot of terrible habits: stopping the ball in isolation plays, shooting inefficient mid-range jumpers (like Tatum) and turning over the ball by forcing plays at the basket or making the wrong read on passes.
Unfortunately, his role models on the team were LeBron and Rondo, who can both dribble away an entire possession before making a good pass.
Ingram is still only 21, so the main hope for Lakers fans is that he will make the jump in year 4, like Russell did, who was 22 at the start of this season.
He has the potential to be much better than he is. If he had been traded to Brooklyn instead of D’Angelo Russell, he would probably be a real All-Star in the East.
Regarding Kawhi Leonard and Paul George:
Celtics and Lakers fans have to be kicking themselves, knowing they could have traded the disappointing Brown and Ingram for two All-NBA and All NBA Defensive 1st Team guys who are also in the MVP conversation.
I’m sick just thinking about a front court of LeBron and George playing next to Lonzo and even a struggling KCP (who is suddenly looking like an All-Star since the Lakers were eliminated from the playoffs).
