SOMETIME IN OCTOBER 2019, Joe Boylan, then an assistant coach with the New Orleans Pelicans, received an unexpected text from Brandon Ingram -- one of the franchise's new stars, acquired months earlier in the Anthony Davis trade.
"I trust you now," the message began.
Ingram urged Boylan to coach him hard, invited Boylan to "motherf---" him if necessary, whatever it took. It was the same message Ingram had delivered to New Orleans higher-ups on his first day there, when he walked into the office of Jeff Bzdelik, then the Pelicans' lead assistant, and declared, "I think I have greatness in me. I want you to get it out of me, and I don't care what you do," several in that room recalled.
Days after that text, Ingram arrived a few minutes late to his appointment at the training table. That was not unusual. Ingram is a night owl. Boylan lit into him in front of the training staff: "This is why the Lakers got rid of you! This motherf---er wants to be great? No! He wants to be comfortable."
Boylan's delivery was so over the top, everyone knew it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Boylan reminded Ingram that his lateness delayed players behind him on the schedule.
Ingram smiled and took it. "I like being called out," he said. "Players at this level think they're above that. I'm still a few minutes late sometimes, but I'm much better."
Perry Tyndall, Ingram's coach at Kinston High School in eastern North Carolina, called out Ingram only once -- when Ingram shrugged and refused to make eye contact as Tyndall criticized Kinston's starters for losing to backups in practice. Tyndall ripped Ingram. He felt bad about it almost right away.
When Tyndall arrived home, he was surprised to receive a text from Ingram apologizing. "I realized I'm being cussed at for a reason," Ingram said. "If I'm the leader of this team, that is going to trickle down. I had to be sharper. I had to be on top of my s---."
When Ingram and Stan Van Gundy met at Ingram's rental home in Miami in October for their first sit-down, Ingram told his new coach he was ready for heavy scrutiny. "What struck me was how self-aware he was," Van Gundy said. Ingram admitted to Van Gundy that his defense had slipped as he embraced a larger scoring role. Ingram vowed to improve his playmaking. After earning individual glory -- plus a new five-year, $158 million contract -- Ingram was ready to focus on passing and defense.
"One of the blessings of him being an All-Star and getting that contract is that he is at peace that you know he's really good," said David Griffin, the Pelicans' personnel chief. "He's just playing his game."
Van Gundy walked out of Ingram's house and called his brother, Jeff, a decorated coach and current analyst for ESPN. "This guy," Van Gundy told his brother, "is the real deal."
Ingram is one of the most important swing players in determining the NBA's balance of power. If he becomes the player he thinks he can be -- a two-way superstar who approaches double digits in assists -- the Pelicans have a chance to contend for titles around Ingram and Zion Williamson. Boylan often told Ingram that New Orleans could win championships if he became their Scottie Pippen.
If Ingram plateaus as an average (or maybe worse) defender and B-plus passer, the Pelicans' ceiling won't reach as high.
Ingram is averaging 23 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists per game -- almost identical to his numbers last season. His shooting is down, but he's more dialed in on defense.
Teammates have noticed Ingram moving the ball earlier, but it hasn't resulted in the leap in assists his opening-night near triple-double against the Toronto Raptors portended.
"That's what you should average," JJ Redick, a New Orleans guard, told Ingram after that game.
Redick has been exhorting Ingram since last season that he might average a triple-double, and become a top-10 player.
"I'm not gonna stop until I'm the best," Ingram once replied.
INGRAM'S DRIVE AND willingness to be coached date to the days and late nights he spent with his father, Donald, who played growing up and helped run the Martin C. Freeman Recreation Center in Kinston. After hours, Donald Ingram kept the center open for Ingram and his friends.
Ingram's father viewed his son's game as representing both his family and the rec center. "He wasn't gonna be a sorry player, or an unskilled player," Donald Ingram said. "I saw a lot of players caught up in fancy dribbling and 'AND1' basketball. I wasn't having that."
They spent evenings working on dribbling and passing, sometimes using Brandon Ingram's friends as defenders and cutters. Ingram never asked for a day off.
Perhaps Ingram internalized the example of two working parents. For 23 years, Donald Ingram awoke before 4 a.m. to arrive early at the Crown Equipment Corporation forklift plant in Kinston. He got home shortly after 3 p.m., dozed in his recliner, and opened the rec center at 5 p.m. -- where he remained until at least 9 p.m.
At the rec center, Brandon Ingram played against men who tried to bully the skinny kid. On defense, Donald would rest his forearm on Ingram's waist, preventing him from moving forward. He demanded his son push back. "Don't let nobody guide you with the ball!"
Donald Ingram played in various leagues against a younger Jerry Stackhouse, who became Brandon Ingram's AAU coach in Kinston and one of his mentors. During a gathering at Stackhouse's mother's home, Stackhouse challenged Ingram -- then around 12 or 13 -- to one-on-one. When Ingram got the ball, Stackhouse grabbed his off arm with both hands. "You're not gonna let me hold you, are you?" he asked. Ten seconds passed, maybe 20. "Get my damn hands off you!" Finally Ingram wrenched them off.
In Stackhouse's memory, they did not play one-on-one again until Ingram's senior year. "He really came at me," Stackhouse said, "and I knew he was ready."
"I don't think he wanted anymore smoke after that," Ingram said.
As Ingram's star rose at Kinston and on the AAU circuit, teammates and coaches admired how unselfish he remained.
"He always made the right play," said Darnell Dunn, Ingram's teammate at Kinston and on Stackhouse's AAU team.
"Everyone knew how talented he was," Stackhouse said. "They were happy to say, 'You do you.' But he ain't the 'do you' type. He would hit the open man and know the ball might come back to him."
The Pelicans have noticed more of that this season. Ingram is making simple plays to keep the offense moving. When defenses trap him, he slips the ball to Steven Adams:
When defenses ignore New Orleans' shaky shooters, Ingram kicks them the ball, confident they will exploit open space. Sometimes, the ball comes back to him -- just as it did in AAU:
"He's making the right play, and that gets to be contagious," Van Gundy said.
In past seasons, Ingram would sometimes either miss simple passes or decline them. He often requested the Pelicans video crew send him compilations of passes he should have made but didn't.
"The guy watches more film than any player I've been around except maybe Chris Paul," Redick said.
He might spot himself settling for midrangers or picking up his dribble when one more bounce would have unlocked something better -- a drop-off to Williamson, or a crosscourt pass for a corner 3.
The dilemma for New Orleans is that Ingram is both their best creator and the best shooter in their starting five. That means the Pelicans sometimes use him as a floor-spacer. It also means many Ingram kickouts go to below-average 3-point shooters.
"It's my responsibility to have guys out there that can finish those plays," Van Gundy said.
If anything, there are possessions where it might be better for Ingram to force it. He has mostly demurred. "I like his balance so far," Van Gundy said. "You don't want someone who is just looking to pass, but you also don't want a pig."
Ingram has become a more confident and polished finisher around the basket -- a prolific producer of free throws. Something clicked in the 2018-19 season, his rumor-filled final year with the Lakers, and the development accelerated in New Orleans. Ingram mastered his footwork -- when to use choppy steps in tight creases, and when to gobble up space with loping strides. He finally seemed to understand how long his arms are -- that he was on top of the rim sooner than he had perceived.
STEELING INGRAM FOR NBA physicality was perhaps the Lakers' most important challenge when they drafted him No. 2 in 2016. Ingram would always be skinny. They believed he could be skinny and strong.
When Ingram was a kid, his father placed a No. 2 pencil and a wire-thin length of steel next to each other, and he asked Ingram which object would snap more easily. The wider pencil broke first.
"You don't have to be fat to be strong," Ingram told his son.
Gunnar Peterson, the Lakers' director of strength and endurance training from 2017 through last season, put Ingram on a regimen of lifting and muscle exercises. "He was all-in," Peterson said.
The summer after Ingram's rookie year, Stackhouse connected him with Raphael Edwards, a New York-based trainer. Edwards went to work strengthening Ingram's core. Ingram did bicycle exercises with weights strapped to his feet. Lifting drills targeted Ingram's arms, legs, back, and abs. Edwards used medium weights, not heavy ones. The goal was for Ingram to perform exercises rapid-fire -- to become more explosive.
The Lakers had already begun reconstructing Ingram's jump shot, which took too long and had too many moving parts; Ingram brought the ball behind his head, generating power from his arms instead of his legs and core.
"It was like he was shooting a dart," said Brian Keefe, a Lakers assistant from 2016 to 2019.
Edwards had Ingram step into his pull-up so that his left foot hit the ground first. (Ingram was going right-left.) He demanded every jumper reach peak height above the square on the backboard.
For dribbling drills, Edwards sucked air out of the ball, forcing Ingram to bounce it harder and work his fingers more to control it, he said.
Ingram returned to the Lakers and struggled in his second preseason. Team officials called Edwards, asking what he and Ingram had done all summer. Stackhouse joked he would station someone outside Edwards' house until Edwards returned half the money Ingram had paid him. "Relax," Edwards told them. "The kid is fine."
Keefe kept on Ingram about his jumper, and tried to help him adapt to playing off the ball alongside D'Angelo Russell. "He had to picture himself being a catch-and-shoot guy," Keefe said. "You could see him thinking: Am I open? Should I shoot? But I'm such a good driver."
In New Orleans last season, Boylan organized 3-on-3 games with special constraints -- including one in which Ingram was not allowed to dribble. Ingram is cagey moving without the ball now, key next to Williamson. But early in L.A., he confided in Edwards: "Nothing is going right. I can't hit a 3."
Ingram spent hours in one-on-one drills where he would drive at Keefe, take contact, and finish. Keefe wanted Ingram to realize how long he was -- to power through him, and keep the ball high where no one could reach it. During one session, Magic Johnson, then the Lakers president of basketball operations, observed before interrupting, Keefe and Ingram recalled: "You're already at the rim." Johnson meant Ingram was so long and athletic, he didn't need to resort to floaters or contorted layups.
"It was get fouled or dunk," Ingram said. "For someone like Magic to tell me that, it really gave me confidence."
KEEFE WAS EATING pizza outside in Laguna Beach, California, on Nov. 24, when his phone rang. It was Ingram. They hadn't talked in a while. Ingram told Keefe he had just signed his new contract in New Orleans, and thanked him for the work they had done together.
"I was like, 'Wow,'" Keefe said.
Before the Davis trade, the Lakers saw signals that work was paying off. Luke Walton, the Lakers coach for Ingram's three seasons there, was among Ingram's biggest supporters in the organization. In meetings, Walton and his staff debated Ingram's best position. Several argued he could be a point-forward. They tried him there when Lonzo Ball got injured in early 2018.
"With no prior reps, he knew the offense," Walton said. "He became a playmaker. It was only a matter of time for him."
He was getting stronger. Mark Madsen, the former NBA player and Lakers assistant, hopped into pickup games with players. On one defensive possession, Madsen rotated and tried to plow through an opponent. When they collided, Madsen stumbled.
"Dang, whoever did that is pretty strong," Madsen thought. He looked up and was surprised to see Ingram. "He plays much stronger than he looks."
Madsen watched Keefe and Ingram work, and thought about one of his old teammates over six years with the Minnesota Timberwolves. "Brandon reminds me of [Kevin Garnett] in terms of his consistency, his routine," Madsen said.
"He is the hardest worker I've ever seen," said Larry Nance Jr., Ingram's teammate in L.A. for parts of two seasons. "The rest of us would get [to practice], and he'd already be drenched in sweat."
Pelicans officials eventually banned Ingram from showing up to their facility on off days. They showed him data from their training staff indicating he was overworking himself. "I hate it," Ingram said. "But I use those off days to visualize the game."
In search of more tutoring, Stackhouse hooked Ingram up with Micah Lancaster, a Michigan-based trainer who has worked with several NBA players. Lancaster pushed Ingram to bend more while dribbling, and shorten his strides while zigzagging through narrow corridors.
The idea was to be faster changing directions. In a crouch, Ingram would be harder for defenders to grasp. He could lean forward and use his shoulders for leverage around the rim. Lancaster learned firsthand of Ingram's wiry strength. He has clients toss a special medicine ball off a wall at his facility in Grand Rapids. Ingram threw the ball straight through Lancaster's drywall, leaving a hole that is still there. They tried another wall. Ingram cracked it on the first throw. "We had to stop him," Lancaster said.
Lancaster set up short cones in twisting patterns, and he had Ingram reach down to touch each one as he dribbled the maze. At first, Ingram slowed to tap the cones. Eventually, he performed the drills at full speed.
"My job is to show you how bad you are at something," Lancaster said. "Some guys don't have the stomach for that. Brandon does."
The choppier strides seemed to contrast with Keefe's work in L.A. helping Ingram use elongated steps getting to the basket. In reality, the skills were complementary -- for use in different scenarios. Honing them all -- digesting where and how to use which style of footwork -- took time.
LEBRON JAMES' ARRIVAL in July 2018 upended Ingram's role, as it did for every Laker. Ingram would play more off the ball. The Davis trade rumors overwhelmed the team starting in December. Ingram knew he would be part of any Davis deal. Even so, he averaged 18 points before the discovery of a blood clot in his right arm ended his season in March 2019.
"The [trade rumors] were tough on him," said Josh Hart, Ingram's teammate in both L.A. and New Orleans. "Before LeBron got there, he had been given the keys. And then people in L.A. were killing him: He's not as good anymore. He's not a great No 2. pick. The rumors became part of our lives, all year. Thank god I don't have to deal with that s--- anymore."
Ingram and Stackhouse discussed how Ingram might fit in New Orleans months before the trade. When it happened, Stackhouse predicted Ingram would excel. "You're in a place that fits you -- more similar to where you grew up," Stackhouse said. "He was collateral damage, but in a good way. I was ecstatic."
Ingram's father feels no resentment toward the Lakers, or regret about his son's path.
"If we went back to draft day, I wouldn't have it any other way," Donald Ingram said. "The L.A. experience helped him become a man."
On Ingram's first day in New Orleans, Fred Vinson, an assistant with expertise in shooting mechanics, introduced himself and went right into a lecture. He said he knew Ingram was entering a contract year, and warned the organization would hold his poor shooting -- about 33% on 3s, 66% at the line -- against him. Vinson said he would be in the Pelicans' gym the next morning if Ingram wished to work.
Ingram showed up. Vinson told Ingram he was pointing his right foot inward upon his release, sapping power from his legs and throwing his body out of alignment -- another voice offering to repair Ingram's game. Vinson slapped tape onto the floor and would not let Ingram shoot unless his toes were straight across the tape. Vinson stood behind Ingram, reaching his arms up, warning Ingram not to bring the ball back so far as to hit him.
Ingram and the other young players then left for some summer time away from the team. He asked Vinson for notes and drills to do. Vinson emailed them.
When Ingram returned in September 2019, his jumper looked so good, Vinson pulled aside Trajan Langdon, the Pelicans' GM, and asked if Ingram had played some sort of trick on him, officials recalled.
On road trips, Ingram asked Vinson to arrange for a gym to be ready for him to shoot when the Pelicans landed. Ball started joining them. In 5-on-5 portions of practice, Ingram sometimes refuses to be subbed out. "He'll tell me to f--- off and get someone else," Hart said.
Ingram tripled his 3-point attempts last season. He hit 39% from deep, and 85% at the line. Vinson wants more: at least seven 3s per game, and more pull-up 3s. Ingram is 12-of-33 on pull-up triples after making just 19 last season. If that becomes a reliable shot, there will be no foolproof scheme for Ingram on the pick-and-roll.
It would help to get Ingram the ball on the move so he is not operating from a standstill. That has been slow going, as Ingram and new teammates hammer out timing. "He's still a slight player," Griffin said. "If he gets the ball at a dead stop, it doesn't take a lot to keep him from getting momentum."
Ingram has a nascent post game for use when smaller guys switch onto him, though he needs more force there, too. His defense has improved, in part because the Pelicans have him guarding wings instead of power forwards who can bulldoze him.
Two weeks ago, Stackhouse texted Ingram after one game and suggested he could get lower in his stance. Ingram replied that he agreed, even if he will always be more of an upright defender who makes up ground with length and speed. The Pelicans are on Ingram to stop peeking behind for oncoming screens, and to always find someone to box out.
Quiet by nature, Ingram is easing into a leadership role after showing deference to Jrue Holiday last season. Another 3-on-3 game with special rules required Ingram to shout the name of every teammate he passed to -- a method of bringing out his voice.
"It helped me get comfortable," Ingram said.
Ingram is popular in the locker room, and coaches last season began using him as a conduit to deliver messages to Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Jaxson Hayes, and other young players. If they heard it from Ingram, it might carry more weight.
A more outgoing Ingram said he might one day accept more endorsements. His representatives wish he would. "He's got a beautiful smile, but he's not about that stuff," Stackhouse said. "He just wants to hoop."
There is still a huge gap between the present and where Ingram thinks he and New Orleans can go one day. Other confidantes have heard Ingram state similarly lofty goals to the one he once told Redick. "It's almost eerie to hear a kid say, 'I want to be the best ever,'" Stackhouse said.
The Pelicans are 5-7, their roster a bit of a mish-mash. But Ingram's belief is unwavering.
"I know," Ingram said, "that we are building something special here."