Brandon Ingram will be sidelined at least another week after what was described as a minor setback in his rehab from a toe injury, according to Andrew Lopez of ESPN.
The Pelicans forward missed his eighth consecutive game on Tuesday due to a left big toe contusion. The Pelicans did more imaging on the injury, Lopez adds, which continued to show just a bruise. However, the team will proceed with caution.
Ingram will be reevaluated in a week, so he’ll be out at least four more games.
New Orleans has cruised along without Ingram, winning seven straight games until falling to the Jazz on Tuesday. Zion Williamson led the club in scoring in all but one of those victories.
Ingram’s stats are down slightly over recent seasons, which is understandable given Williamson’s reemergence. Ingram is averaging 20.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game while shooting a career-best 47.1% from beyond the 3-point arc.
Injuries have nagged Ingram throughout his career. After appearing in 79 games as a rookie with the Lakers, he has not played more than 62 regular-season games in any of the past five seasons.
He’s in the third season of a five-year, $158MM+ contract.
It does seem that a lot of those Laker draftees who got traded have a poor injury history – Ingram, Ball, Russell, Kuzma, Randle all have missed a lot of games.
Not Randle. He’s missed no more than a handful of games for injury over the past 3 seasons (most for a minor thing in the last games of last season). The bigger issue with him is that sometimes fans have wished at least the missed games part of it were more.
The Pelicans are 8-2 in their L10 and still lead the West despite losing last night after winning 7 straight. They are a really deep and dangerous team.
Williamson will need to stay healthy!