Lakers rookie Brandon Ingram has been compared — by others and by himself — to new Warrior Kevin Durant since he was a scrawny high schooler. Comparisons to NBA superstars are inevitable, and certainly fun to debate, for any high school or college prospect, but the highest level of praise can only come from the star in question.
At USA Basketball training camp in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Durant put his stamp of approval on the 18-year old Duke product and echoed the past comparisons made between the two lanky forwards. Durant is one of the main stars of the USA team that will play in the Rio Olympics in a few weeks, and Ingram is a part of the 25-man Select Team that was brought in to provide scrimmage opponents during camp.
Kevin Durant on @B_Ingram13: “First person I can say, that I can look at him & feel like I’m looking in the mirror.” pic.twitter.com/1EDSgsrPfu
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) July 19, 2016
Durant even went so far as to add that he thinks Ingram is further along at this age than he was as a teenager, telling reporters, “He’s a little bit more fluid than I was, as far as skill-wise, a little more advanced than I was at that time. I was just running, jumping, shooting threes. But, he could put the ball on the floor, change directions, get to the rim, shoot the pull-up three, so that stuff started to come a little later on for me, but he’s a little farther along than I was.”
Ingram and Durant share similar playing styles and body types, with both men listed at 6-foot-9 inches tall — although Durant has admitted he’s 6-foot-11. Though Durant has 50 pounds on the youngster, who is almost 10 years his junior, they are both wing players inside power forwards’ bodies. In their first — and only — years at college, the two played slightly different roles for teams that had significantly different makeups.
Both were huge contributors, but Durant was the unquestioned go-to guy for his Texas team that had just three players average more than 8 points per game. Durant himself paced the team with 25 points and 11 rebounds per game, and won the 2007 Wooden Award as the best college player. On Ingram’s Duke squad, six players scored 8 points per game or more, and although Ingram tallied around 17 points per game, he didn’t lead the team in scoring.
Their shooting percentages best display their similarities, though, as Ingram shot 44.2 percent from the field and 41 percent from deep, while Durant carried marks of 47.3 percent and 40.4 percent.
Statistics and comparisons are nice to talk about, but as the saying goes, talk is cheap, and with Durant and Ingram now playing for division rivals, the two will face off head-to-head four times each season for the foreseeable future. Each matchup can provide Durant with an enjoyable blast from the past as he watches the inexperienced Ingram find his place in the league as he once did with the Sonics and Thunder. For the Lakers’ new franchise cornerstone, the contests against Durant will be much more important.
For the first year or two, Ingram will have very little pressure to succeed, both in general and in games against the Warriors. As Durant himself said recently, the Lakers are nowhere near “win now” mode, despite the franchise’s storied past. Each game Ingram plays against Durant and the Dubs will provide him with a chance to measure himself against one of the league’s historically great players and teams as he grows and develops as an NBA player.
As Ingram enters his twenties and more is expected of him and the Lakers, however, the matchups can either be a blessing or a curse. If he develops into the superstar he can be, Ingram should be able to match, or even surpass, an aging Durant within the next four to five years. Laker wins and strong performances from Ingram in games against Golden State can go a long way toward showing the league and himself that he is ready to become a bona fide star.
But, if a 32-year-old Durant can still dominate a 23-year old Ingram in 2021, for example, the comparisons and confidence level may start to dwindle. As a competitor, Ingram will obviously be up for the challenge of taking on Durant four times each season, but he will have to be careful not to let the score of the games or his individual performance bother him too much early on in his career.
Eventually, the games will matter, and Lakers fans and head coach Luke Walton will expect him to give Durant a run for his money as a premier player in the league. It will be up to Ingram to be ready to take that next step and validate the comparisons that have followed him for so long.