Maybe the Lakers’ broadcast does this all the time, but I found it amusing how they would constantly be cutting to LeBron on the sideline whenever Brandon Ingram (or another young player for the Lakers) would do something exciting. It’s like they’re trying to tell the viewer at home, “LeBron thinks these young players are good, so you should think they’re good too”. The Lakers have enough accolades that they shouldn’t be scrounging for validation from LeBron, but it sort of seems like they are. I’m sure that, with every good game that Brandon Ingram has, the whole front office thinks to themselves with relief, “Now LeBron won’t regret coming here.”
Then Ingram puts up another stinker and they’re all panicking, wondering if LeBron will demand that all of the Lakers’ young pieces get traded for established veterans on the decline.
In fairness to Ingram, he did have some nice plays last night, and he did sort of put the game away, even if he did it while taking awkward-looking shots that maybe shouldn’t have gone in. In true LeBron fashion, Ingram even hit a bigdick three-pointer with two minutes left to give the Lakers the lead for good. Actually, in general, Ingram had a LeBron-esque statline with 21/7/9. Add a couple more buckets to that total and you wouldn’t be able to convince me that Ingram’s line wasn’t in fact a LeBron statline.