Brandon Ingram was the one New Orleans Pelicans player who had largely managed to stay healthy this season. In a season in which basically the entire roster has missed significant time due to injuries, Ingram managed to start 18 of the first 24 games for a New Orleans team desperate for any measure of consistency. Unfortunately, Ingram was the latest Pelican to go down with a meaningful injury on Saturday, leaving New Orleans even thinner as it desperately tries to retain postseason hope this season.
The moment came during the first possession of the third quarter on Saturday against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Ingram spun into a mid-range jumper but landed on the foot of Thunder defender Lu Dort. He immediately crumpled to the ground and left the game. Now, according to ESPN, he has suffered a significant lower left ankle sprain and will be out indefinitely.
This injury might have been the death knell for the Pelicans' playoff hopes in an extremely competitive Western Conference (they entered Sunday's action with less than a 1% chance of reaching the playoffs, per SportsLine). At 5-19, New Orleans was already 7.5 games out of the No. 10 seed in the West, and unlike the East, pretty much everyone ahead of them except for the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers are actively trying to reach the postseason.
Now, they will be without Ingram indefinitely, and there is no known timetable for a return by Zion Williamson, who is currently out due to a hamstring injury. The Pelicans lead the league in both total days missed due to injury this season (256) and salary spent on injured players this season ($24,026,740 and counting) according to Spotrac. Only the Grizzlies (114) and Raptors (102) have had players miss more total games than the Pelicans (101), but neither has lost players as significant as the Pelicans have.
To recap, the Pelicans entered the season with a seven-man rotation of Ingram, Williamson, Dejounte Murray, C.J. McCollum, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones and Jose Alvarado. Ingram was the last player left in that group who hadn't missed double-digit games this season. Combined, they have appeared in just 70 of a possible 168 total games for New Orleans, meaning 98 of those 101 total missed games were by players within their core.
To add insult to literal injury here, Ingram is set to become a free agent next offseason and was playing for a new contract. In all likelihood, that wasn't going to come from the Pelicans, who have only around $31 million in luxury tax space next season. Ingram, who recently switched agents and joined Klutch Sports, is expected to want quite a bit more than that, and sure enough, the Pelicans reportedly looked into trading him over the summer. They didn't find a taker, so Ingram's early-season performance was critical in potentially finding a team to trade for and eventually pay him.
Now Ingram faces an uphill battle on that front, and the Pelicans may potentially be resigned to the lottery. It's been a disappointing season for just about everyone in New Orleans so far, and this latest injury might be the nail in its coffin.