DENVER — If a player gets hit with the injury-prone tag, there are usually two explanations. The first: He has been unlucky. The second: He doesn’t want to be on the court badly enough.
Brandon Ingram has, generally, been associated with the less favourable reasoning. Maybe it’s because of the way he moves: He’s lanky and measured, which can play as being languid and disinterested. Maybe it’s his low-key personality in public, which paints him as a happier, less mysterious version of Kawhi Leonard. His voice can get lost in the hum of a loud air conditioner. He does not give off unbridled passion.
Whatever the reason, Ingram’s love for the game and ability to deal with the rigours of the NBA season have been questioned. Ingram posits the issue wasn’t that he didn’t want to be on the floor; it was that getting on the floor was all he knew.
“I think it was a problem,” Ingram, the Toronto Raptors’ leading scorer, told The Athletic before a late-season game in Denver. “Sometimes you get so stuck in the moments that you don’t understand or realize that it’s an 82-game season, or there are 82-plus games in a season. Some days you want to exert yourself because things might not be going so well. Sometimes it’s not the best thing to do.”
This has been a year in which we have been reminded that injury-plagued is not the same as injured forever. Kawhi Leonard, the poster boy for load management and the most common face associated with the necessity for the 65-game rule, is on his way to passing that mark for the second time in three years. Closing in on 35, he has been one of the best players in the league. More quietly, Zion Williamson eclipsed 60 games for the third time in his six seasons, including an entire season he missed. He probably would have reached 65 if New Orleans had been playing for something late. The Pelicans star played in 35 consecutive games at one point this year, the longest streak of his career.
And then there is the 28-year-old Ingram, Williamson’s long-time teammate in New Orleans. Part of the reason things didn’t work out for the pair on the Pelicans is that they were rarely healthy at the same time. Well, in his first year with the Raptors, Ingram hit the 70-game mark for just the second time in his 10-year career, finishing at 77. (In the COVID-shortened season, he played the equivalent of 69 games.) His ability to stay healthy, along with that of his new star teammate, Scottie Barnes, who played 80 games, is the biggest reason the Raptors are heading to the playoffs. At 46-36, they captured the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference and will play the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round. It is the Raptors’ first trip to the playoffs since 2022.
Aside from a thumb injury that cost him two games in January and a heel injury that kept him out of three games, Ingram has been available for the Raptors. Not only that, but he is just one of 23 players in the league averaging more than 33 minutes and 30 seconds per game this season.
When the Raptors acquired him, Ingram’s history of health issues was one of a few reasons he was available for a relative pittance: the matching salaries of Bruce Brown and Kelly Olynyk and a first-round pick belonging to the Indiana Pacers. Ingram was in the midst of dealing with a badly sprained ankle that cost him the final four months of the season.
Now, he has gotten back to where he was in 2019-20, when he was named the league’s Most Improved Player in his fourth season. Ingram is a key cog for a team trying to make its first playoff trip with its new core. He couldn’t get there that season, as he missed the final five games of the year with a knee injury. Those Pelicans did not make it to the playoffs out of the NBA bubble.
“I feel good about it. This is something I’ve dreamed of my whole life,” Ingram said. “It feels a little different in the sense that when New Orleans broke through, we saw a lot of injuries. We were never able to have a full team going into the playoffs. So it’s a little different. It’s kind of the same feeling where things start to click and things start to connect.”
There was a sense that Ingram was doomed to go down as a talented player who couldn’t stay on the floor. And certainly, one season does not make a trend. It is a reminder that with some luck, an open mind and hard work, injuries don’t have to be a sure thing, even given the strains the modern game and schedule put on players.
Upon arriving in Toronto in February 2025, Ingram didn’t have one glaring issue that kept him off the floor. His reasons for missing large stretches have been a case of head, shoulder, knees and toes: groin strain, deep vein thrombosis, a few ankle sprains, a strained Achilles, hamstring strain, toe sprain, and hyper-extended knee.
In a February interview, Raptors GM Bobby Webster told The Athletic that the Raptors consider their medical staff to be an advantage. It was Raptors vice president of player health and performance Alex McKechnie, after all, who brought the term “load management” into our lives during Leonard’s one season in Toronto.
As with most NBA teams, the Raptors keep their medical and recovery strategies to themselves. In Ingram, they found a player who was committed and bought in to whatever they told him regarding his ankle sprain, and then whatever recovery methods were necessary to keep him on the floor as much as possible this year. A lot of that comes down to paying attention to what the team calls “green, yellow and red” days. Based on measurements of the load a player is carrying, the Raptors recommend their players stay off their feet entirely (red), do some work (yellow) or go through their full routine (green).
Garrett Temple, the team’s oldest player and also a teammate of Ingram in New Orleans, said the protocols are not notably different from other teams — he has played for 12 franchises. The difference, he said, is in how much leeway the coaching staff allows the medical staff to determine participation.
“(It’s) just constant communication. ‘How’s your body feeling? Is this a day we pull back a little bit? Is this a day we can still go hard?’” Ingram said. “They’re giving me all the information I need to know if I need to exert or if I need to take a step back.”
There is nothing out of the ordinary that Ingram credits for this year’s health. He lifts weights after games, makes liberal use of cold tubs, has his own personal masseuse and has started managing his diet more closely — all typical mid-career stuff.
Toronto Raptors forward Brandon Ingram has found that less is more when it comes to the NBA grind. (John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)
Many times throughout the year, Ingram has mentioned “giving himself grace” for not playing up to his standard. Part of that, he has realized, involves accepting some rough stretches, knowing he has put the requisite work in over the course of his career, and staying off the court even if the competitor’s tendency is to “go to the lab” and fix something.
“It takes a while, especially if you’re a competitor, a guy that has a great work ethic,” Temple said of learning when to keep yourself off the floor. “You’ve got the old-school mindset that you gotta work — nothing beats work, which is the truth in most cases. But it’s about working smarter. … Some people it may take three years (to learn). Some people it may take six. Some people it may take 10. You figure it out as it goes. In this league, the pace with which we play, the number of possessions, the style we play in the NBA, the ones that get ahead are the ones that are efficient and work smarter, not always the ones that just grind, grind, grind.”
“Luckily (my slumps) didn’t last long. They lasted a couple games,” Ingram said. “But in the moment, it feels like it lasts a long time. … I just had to tell myself that these things happen. I know how to play basketball. I’ve made these shots a lot of times. Eventually I’ll get the rhythm back, and it’ll be better.”
Ingram isn’t a huge “I’ll show them” guy. For him, playing, especially at this level, is the reward. Ingram played just 10 playoff games in his first nine seasons.
But you don’t become a high-lottery pick or an All-Star without finding some extra fuel for motivation. He is aware of how many around the league talked about him. At a practical level, his inability to reach a contract extension with the Pelicans and the compensation the Raptors sent to New Orleans for him were proof of the league’s skepticism. The Raptors were excited to get him, but they gave him a two-year contract extension with a player option for a third, not a five-year deal.
“I felt like it was part of my journey. Some people get to showcase that talent and be on the floor as soon as they come in the league,” Ingram said of his injuries and the games he missed. “Some people showcase their talent in the middle of their careers. And some people put it all together at the end of their careers. It’s all just divine timing. It was time for me to learn some things off the floor, see how it feels to be injured and how to take it.
“It did bother me a little bit, being injured and not being on the floor. But you can never get caught up in what everyone else is saying. Nobody knows what is truly going on. People around it, they’ll make some comments.”
The nature of those comments has changed, at least from those he cares most about.
“He takes care of his body. He does a lot off the court to get ready to play 35-plus minutes every day,” said Raptors guard Jamal Shead, who has taken particular notice of how Ingram naps to bank more sleep. Shead, in his second year, became close to Ingram soon after the trade. “He’s very intentional with that. He’s becoming more of a vocal leader around here, telling everyone else how to take care of themselves.”
Health is one thing, but production is another. Ingram was an All-Star, added as an injury replacement, but his season hasn’t been perfect. While his shooting numbers have hovered around his career norms, his assists have taken a hit in the Raptors’ egalitarian, transition-heavy attack. His slower decision-making can bog down the Raptors in the half court, even if his tough shotmaking is necessary.
For the year, the Raptors outscored their opponents by 43 total points over his 2,604 minutes. They were plus-189 in his 1,352 minutes on the bench. While there are moments when his skills feel essential to the Raptors, the team’s offence is just a bit better when he is out there than when he is not, and the defence is much leakier. Still, he had huge moments for the Raptors this year, including excellent performances in a pair of final-week wins over the Heat, which allowed Toronto to avoid the Play-In Tournament.
Ingram’s shotmaking has allowed Barnes to step out of the late-game bucket-getter role and become the best version of himself. Still, Ingram will be a staple in the biggest minutes for the Raptors this spring. And you have to be available to play to alter outside perception.
“I’m halfway there,” Ingram said, assessing the state of his game. “Gotta put in some consistency and keep doing this every single night. Maybe by the playoffs, I’ll be there. I’m still working.”
Just in a different way.