New Orleans has found the trade market for Brandon Ingram lukewarm. The Pelicans want to trade him partly because they don’t want to pay him on his next contract — a max would be four years, $208 million — but other teams feel the same way.
Ingram’s management team is working with the Pelicans to find Ingram a new home, Marc Stein reported in his latest newsletter at Substack.
“Ingram, with one All-Star appearance on his resume like [Lauri] Markkanen, has only one season left on his current contract and is said to be seeking a four-year contract extension worth nearly $210 million. The Pelicans have made it clear that they won’t go to those lengths to re-sign him and, while various teams have explored Ingram trades since the offseason began in earnest, no other team willing to sign the 26-year-old at those numbers has yet emerged.”
Ingram is one of the players hung up by the new CBA. He’s a high-level isolation scorer who averaged 20.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 5.7 assists in almost 33 minutes a night in 64 games for the Pelicans last season. A lot of teams could use a bucket-getter like Ingram.
However, teams don’t want to give him $50+ million a year, or 30% of their cap space. In a second apron tax world, teams are going to be more careful about who gets a max contract, and if there are questions about how much a player contributes to winning or if there is an injury history — both things that apply to Ingram — teams are hesitant.
It’s something to watch over the next couple of years, to see how things shake out for players like Ingram or Zach LaVine. Can they get the max from a team, and if not, where do their salaries fall? The new CBA changes the dynamic.
What we know is Ingram’s management is still looking for that team willing to pay him that max.
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