Brandon Ingram will join Klutch Sports after his recent split with Excel, according to ESPN. The move is the latest curveball in what has been a tumultuous stretch leading into Ingram's impending 2025 free agency.
Ingram arrived in New Orleans as the centerpiece of the Anthony Davis trade with the Los Angeles Lakers. Davis, ironically, preceded his departure from New Orleans by hiring Klutch Sports as his representation. While Ingram remains a Pelican for now, he has been at the center of trade talks since the offseason. The motivations for those talks were largely financial, but those same concerns are likely what scuttled a deal.
The Pelicans entered the 2024 offseason with long-term commitments to Zion Williams, CJ McCollum and Herb Jones already on the books. They quickly traded for Dejounte Murray and would later sign Trey Murphy to a hefty contract extension, giving them five relatively expensive players on the books. Jones and Murphy share a position with Ingram and, as specialists on defense and in shooting, respectively, are cleaner fits next to Williamson on a theoretically healthy version of this roster. The Pelicans have historically been among the NBA's thriftier teams, and before accounting for a new Ingram contract, they currently sit roughly $31 million below the luxury tax line. The Pelicans are one of two teams, along with the Hornets, that have never paid any iteration of the luxury tax, according to Spotrac.
"So I think from a relationship standpoint, we've been really clear we'd prefer Brandon stays with us and Brandon's been pretty clear he prefers to stay with us. At the same time, there is a financial reality to this, and where I think we can go in terms of keeping this group together might not be as far as he and his agency would like us to be able to go," Pelicans vice president of basketball operations David Griffin said in June.
In other words, Ingram likely wants more than the $31 million or so the Pelicans have in luxury tax room. Maybe the Pelicans would go above the tax line to keep him, but at least for now, the two sides have not found a common ground.
That's why the Pelicans looked into trading Ingram over the summer. They just couldn't find any takers because the rest of the league seemed just as hesitant to pay Ingram. The NBA as a whole is entering a new period of fiscal responsibility. The revamped aprons in the 2023 CBA punish teams more than ever for overpaying players, and that seems to be causing some of the disconnect here.
Ingram is a former All-Star. He's only 27 years old and plays the league's scarcest position. But he's also an inconsistent defender and playmaker, and his shot selection often leaves quite a bit to be desired. His best seasons tend to come when his 3-point volume is at its highest, but after starting his New Orleans tenure with two seasons above six attempts per game, his next three saw him average 3.9. He's up to a career-high 6.7 attempts per game this season, but is only making them at roughly a league-average rate, and he's getting to the basket less than ever this season.
In the past, demand for talent greatly outweighed supply. A former All-Star like Ingram putting up north of 20 points per game would be able to walk into a max contract simply because, well, how else are bad teams going to spend their money? That's not the current NBA, and Ingram is the first big-name player to really feel that crunch. His agent switch is part of a search for a solution.
What exactly that solution could be, well, is a bit more of a mystery. Klutch could put pressure on the Pelicans for a trade, sure, but if there was a good one on the table, New Orleans likely would have taken it, and if there was a team prepared to pay him, wouldn't that team have made a good trade offer by now? Things can change between now and the trade deadline and the offseason, but at this moment, the league's perception of Ingram's value seems unlikely to have changed. Perhaps some team would be interested in giving Ingram the max in free agency, without giving up trade assets to get him, but at this point, only the Wizards and Nets are slated to have max cap space this offseason and they are in the midst of rebuilds.
So for now, the Ingram situation continues to simmer. Perhaps circumstances will change in some meaningful way between now and the offseason and an acceptable salary slot will open up for Ingram somewhere. Until that happens, or he changes his demands to reflect his more modest market, he and the Pelicans remain at an impasse.
