New Orleans Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram is entering the final year of his current contract with the team, and as one of its key pieces, he wants a sweet payday. Such is pretty standard, except he’s looking for quite the feast.

The one-time All-Star is eligible to get a massive five-year, $208 million deal. He’s at the absolute athletic prime of his career at 27 years old, and the Pelicans are more than able to provide that amount. However, as they say, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

For starters, the Pels already traded for Dejounte Murray, a two-way threat with a reliable playmaker with a defensive presence, and though Jonas Valanciunas was lost via free agency, they have plenty of things to work with. Zion Williamson just had a solid season (albeit suffering another injury), CJ McCollum is looking good as a scorer and veteran leader, while Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones form a good defensive duo at the wing position.

In addition, ‘BI’ is not only tiers below the $40M per year bracket, his 2023-24 campaign was also not up to par to expectations. While shooting splits were good (49.2 / 35.5 / 80.1), he finished the season with 20.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 5.7 assists per game – his lowest scoring average in five seasons in New Orleans. He also didn’t make up for it in the playoffs as he was limited to 14.3 PPG on 34.5% shooting, a time where the Pels needed him as Williamson was out with an injury. 

They were handily swept in the first round by the supposedly inexperienced Oklahoma CIty Thunder, 4-0, as he couldn’t get a comfortable shot off of Lu Dort.

There’s still a season left for to prove that he can be worthy of that much dough, but many aspects have to align: he has to put up monster numbers, be the team’s absolute go-to guy, and lead the Pelicans really deep into the playoffs, if not a championship. 

Those are gargantuan tasks, so yeah, we should probably expect a trade between now and the 2025 trade deadline.

In any case, this story should be one to anticipate in the next weeks and months, especially if you’ve followed his career. Aside from being an above average forward with a handful of years left in his prime and an ability to score in bunches, it’s simply just an interesting arc to trail. 

Ingram was drafted second overall by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2016. He looked like a bust in his first year (9.2 PPG, 40.2 FG%), raised his game, became a centerpiece in the Anthony Davis trade, worked his way into being an All-Star and winning the 2020 Most Improved Player, kept scoring despite constant injuries, and then losing momentum, to a point where we don’t know if a single team will consider him a max contract player.