It's so rare, in our hot-take, quick-to-outrage world, that there comes a story that everyone can feel good about and not carp about on Twitter. It's not that you're a cynic about these things, but people, being people, are human. They're fallible. They make mistakes in judgment that can be disappointing. But Ingram produces similar reactions in everyone -- genuine joy at his accomplishment, given the work he put in over a decade to get here.
Called up by the Lakers from their G League affiliate, the South Bay Lakers, to play the last two games of the NBA season, Ingram didn't just show up. He thrived as if channeling Roy Hobbs. Against the best team in the league, the Houston Rockets, he scored 19 points on 6 of 8 shooting, including 4 of 5 on 3-pointers. The next night, against the LA Clippers, he didn't shoot it as well, making just 2 of 9 shots. But he had six assists, three rebounds and two steals, finishing with a +23 in 35 minutes on the floor.
Andre Ingram put on a scoring show in a loss to the Lakers.
And he handled all of it the same way he's handled everything since his days at AU (2003-07), where he's still fifth on the school's all-time scoring list and was a three-time all-Patriot League selection.
"I listened to myself when I was interviewed by somebody about him," said his coach at AU, Jeff Jones, on Sunday. "I'm sure there are people out there who will read it and go 'okay, right.' But it's one of those things. He's special … he's just one of those people who, he's a better person than the rest of us"
Jones, now the coach at Old Dominion, invited Ingram to work his camp last year to speak. "Of course, he comes early," Jones said. And afterward, Ingram didn't want to be paid for his time.
"When we met with Andre, he's a person that's kind of represented by gratitude and appreciation," Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka said Saturday. "Being in the room when we kind of surprised him -- he thought it was an exit meeting -- and we made an offer to wear the Lakers jersey, you could just see the emotion hit him, and then when he called his family. He's a terrific person. And in the building, all of a sudden, we're playing against the Rockets, and our crowd is chanting MVP when Andre Ingram's at the line. It as kind of a surreal moment."
Ingram has carried himself the same way for years -- dedicated to his craft, but also to helping when he can. That's taken many forms, including tutoring kids in math to supplement his basketball salaries and his young family, and being a mentor to his young South Bay teammates.
After 10 years on the NBA grind, Andre Ingram finally realized his dream.
"The value of him off the court for our G League team is something that has to be mentioned," South Bay General Manager Nick Mazzella said by phone Sunday. "We rely on developing young players. To have a guy in the locker room who can put an arm around a young guy going through a tough stretch, to show them good practice habits, that's invaluable to us."
He was a star the moment he stepped on campus at AU, earning Patriot League Freshman of the Year honors, helping the Eagles reach the Patriot League championship game in 2004. He shouldn't have ever wound up there, having starred for Highland Springs High in Richmond. But Ingram was one of those talents that, for some reason, was barely recruited.
"VCU was his local team," Jones said. "He wasn't recruited there, or (the University of) Richmond. We knew. We absolutely knew that we were getting a steal. This was a kid that was better than his recruitment … we were holding our breath the hold time. He played AAU the summer before, because he was young. He was playing, maybe, in Orlando. And I was down there, and I was worried. He was averaging 30 a game. And all it took was somebody to persuade him to play at Fork Union for a (postgraduate) year, and then our NLI (National Letter of Intent) would be over. We never did talk about it. And I mentioned it this summer and he said 'I wasn't going to do that.'"
He played the exact same way he does now -- no wasted motion on the floor, constantly finding the soft spots in opponents' defenses, leading by example.
Andre Ingram talks with "Inside the NBA" about his long journey to the league.
But Ingram went undrafted in '07. He felt he could get to the NBA, though, and started the grind, beginning with the Utah Flash, which selected him in the seventh round of what was then the D-League Draft. After four years there, Ingram was the franchise's all-time leading scorer, making 328 3-pointers. (The Flash ceased operations in 2011 and was resurrected across the country two years later in Delaware; the team is now the Philadelphia 76ers' G League affiliate, the Delaware Blue Coats.)
Ingram then started with the Lakers' organization, with the D-Fenders, always grinding toward his ultimate goal of making the NBA. As he kept making 3-pointers, and the NBA started turning toward small ball and wings who could shoot it from deep, a callup seemed in the cards. But it never materialized. A brief stop in Australia in 2016 lasted all of two games, and it was back to the G League and the Lakers, whose affiliate was relocated and renamed. As Ingram's hair turned gray, he kept making 3-pointers with that funky, Michael Adams-like release, becoming the G League's all-time leader in made 3-pointers.
He was a testament to getting in the lab and perfecting the craft. But no call came from the parent team, which was dealing with the death of patriarch Jerry Buss in 2013, a cascading series of bad personnel moves and the end of Kobe Bryant's career. There was just too much going on.
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