Patience, hard work leads Raptors' Ingram to unlikely all-star return

TORONTO — It was supposed to be a rare opportunity for a full practice, but 15 minutes in, Darko Rajakovic ruined it. 

Brandon Ingram was standing by the scorer’s table at the OVO Athletic Centre when the Raptors head coach ran over and jumped on Brandon Ingram’s back. 

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Ingram said. “He told me, ‘Congrats.’ Everyone else told me congrats. I was the last one to know. Everybody kept jumping on me for like five minutes.”

“I guess the emotions were too high,” said Ingram. “He [Rajakovic] cancelled [the rest] of practice.”

The news was that Ingram was going to be added to the All-Star Game roster this weekend as an injury replacement for Steph Curry. 

Rajakovic’s excitement was sincere. Few coaches celebrate their players’ successes more, but having Ingram return to all-star form was an organizational goal since the talented forward was acquired at the trade deadline a year ago. 

At the time the idea seemed far-fetched. Ingram hadn’t been named an all-star since 2020 and was in the midst of a season last year where he played just 18 games, none for the Raptors as they were happy to have him sit out and rehabilitate a badly sprained ankle. 

Missing time was par for the course for Ingram, having developed a reputation as a talented if slightly one-dimensional player who had a knack for accumulating injuries, played more than 70 games just once — his rookie season — and averaged just 52 games per year in eight seasons since. 

But Ingram was hungry to reclaim his reputation in his 10th season — he said in training camp he wanted to “prove to [myself] who I am” — and went to great lengths to make it happen. Even while he was sitting out he worked closely with the Raptors training staff to not only heal his ankle injury but address other areas of weakness to prevent more potential injuries. He has kept up a thorough 'prehab' program over the course of the season and will be playing in his 53rd out of a possible 55 games when the Raptors host the Detroit Pistons Wednesday. It’s the most games he’s played prior to the all-star break since his rookie season and ranks him ninth in total minutes played entering Tuesday. 

No one would have predicted that Ingram would be an NBA ironman in his 10th season, but it explains all the successes that have followed. 

“I think that from the moment he came to our team, the amount of work and preparation [he put in], he had a really hard summer with lot of recovery, lot of like, boring exercises and stuff to get him healthy, to get him on the floor,” said Rajakovic.  “And that he has [missed just two games] is just testament to all the amount of work that he put in.”

The results tell a story, too. The Raptors are 15 wins ahead of where they were this time last season, having surpassed their 30-win total from 2024-25 two games ago. Ingram is a big reason why as he leads Toronto in scoring at 22 points a game while adding 5.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists and maintaining an effective field goal percentage of 52.4 on one of the more difficult shot diets in the league as the Raptors have relied on him as their primary late-clock and late-game scoring option. 

Ingram made note that he was an injury replacement, rather than voted in as one of 10 starters or being chosen as one of the 14 reserves chosen by a coach’s vote, so in his mind his comeback remains ongoing, but getting the recognition is a tribute to what it took for him to get this far. 

“It was definitely one of my goals, to make all-star. After the summer that I had, coming into the season, I knew it was going to be some time where I was going to be a little bit rusty,” said Ingram, who made a point of thanking the Raptors' player development staff and training staff. “I knew I was going to find it sooner or later. I knew it was going to be before [the] all-star [break]. I didn’t count on making all-star. But I knew still, coming off of injury, I was one of the better players in the league. I knew I had a chance.”

Three-point Grange

All-Star weekend safe for CMB

Collin Murray-Boyles has been ruled out against the Pistons as he tries to get his fragile left thumb settled down after taking whacks on it constantly since he first sprained it against Miami on Dec. 23. He jarred it again on Sunday against Indiana, and while he won’t be playing against the Pistons, the talented rookie will be heading to Los Angeles to take part in the Rising Stars game. Presumably Murray-Boyles won’t have anyone hacking at his thumb or feel the need to hack someone else (that’s how he aggravated it against Indiana), given the mostly casual nature of the mid-season showcase. 

Raptors centre Jakob Poeltl (back) is questionable and will be a game-time decision against the Pistons. And while there was nothing official as of Tuesday afternoon, there is a strong possibility/near certainty that the Pistons will be without big man duo Jalen Duran and Isaiah Stewart, who are each facing suspensions for their respective roles in a fracas that broke out in the second half of Detroit’s win over Charlotte on Monday night. 

Raptors get tested

Even as the Raptors head into the all-star break with the fifth-best record in the East (before play Tuesday) it’s not clear exactly how good they are. Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said as much when he was speaking after last week’s trade deadline.  

“There are going to be some hard evaluations here,” said Webster. “This is the hardest part of the season. This is when the lights are brightest … we’ll see it if we’re fortunate enough to be in the play-in or in playoff games and we’ll get more evaluations.”

The Raptors (32-22) have been locked into the top six of the Eastern Conference — the teams that are guaranteed a first-round playoff series — since the middle of November and spent most of that time in the top four, briefly rising as high as second place.

With two-thirds of the season played, that’s usually a strong indicator that a team is, indeed, 'good.' 

But hosting the first-place Pistons — the first of three meetings between the two teams over the final 28 games — emphasizes an inconvenient truth about the Raptors' standing: So far, their record against the NBA’s best kind of sucks. 

The Raptors have the 11th-best record in the NBA but are just 4-12 against the 10 teams ahead of them, with three of those wins coming against a Cleveland Cavaliers team that was in various states of disarray in the first month of the season. Otherwise, the only victory over a team in the NBA’s top 10 since Nov. 24 came two months later, on Jan. 25 on the road against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder. And while it can’t be dismissed, the Thunder were missing two starters and four of their top eight rotation pieces. 

The Pistons match-up is the first of 11 games the Raptors have remaining against the 10 opponents with better records than Toronto. Results in those contests will likely determine how high in the standings the Raptors finish, or how far they fall. Rajakovic welcomes the challenge. 

“There are no secrets. They're a really good team. They're a really talented team. They play really hard. And we got to be ready for that,” he said. “We're ready for their physicality. We need to bring our own physicality, our own grit that we're playing with. And as I said, many times playing against best teams in the league is very, very good for us. It's very beneficial every time. When we play like teams from the top of the standings, we always get better. We always learn something new about us.”