It’s not been a terribly easy stretch for Los Angeles Lakers fans. Their favorite team has not provided much happiness or too man reasons to cheer over the past few seasons as the Lakers’ place among the NBA hierarchy continues to drop.
But now that the team has been forced to fully embrace a youth movement and a rebuild, those same fans can look to the future and imagine a return to the glory days that brought the franchise 16 NBA championships. The main focus in those dreams of soon-to-be glory? Rookie and second-overall pick in the 2016 Draft Brandon Ingram.
The stringy forward out of Duke lit up Las Vegas’s Thomas & Mack Center on Friday night, going for 22 points on a more-than-solid 9-of-13 shooting performance in a 92-88 loss to Utah. He also added five rebounds and four assists, capping a nice run of summer games with his strongest performance of the duration.
“I think as a player, you’re never satisfied,” Ingram told ESPN.com’s Baxter Holmes while adding that he found his overall performance just OK. “I think I could’ve shot the ball a lot better, and on the defensive end I could’ve been a lot better. But overall, the camaraderie, just being with the team, just building chemistry all the time during this whole process, I think it’s been pretty good.”
Lakers coach Luke Walton made note of Ingram’s basketball intelligence, a rare quality in a player who is only 19. Ingram has a long way to go – the Vegas Summer League is far from the real thing and he naturally must add some serious bulk to his 6-foot-9, 190-pound frame.
But on Friday night in Vegas, he gave those loyal, hearty Laker fans a glimpse of a future that’s shimmering in royal purple and gold.
(via ESPN)
