The Lakers Signing A 10-Year G League Veteran For The Rest Of The NBA Regular Season Is Cool As Hell

I want to hate on this, specifically because it’s the Lakers, but I can’t. This is cool as hell. The G League isn’t quite as daunting a grind as baseball’s minor leagues – the impossibly long seasons filled with coach bus rides from small town to small town throughout the course of a hot summer for minimum wage – but the G League has inarguably been a far less fruitful path to the highest level of their respective sports. While that’s mostly due to its relative infancy, you’re more likely to bounce around Europe or China and catch the eye of a GM to get a shot in the Association. The G League has been great for taking NBA Draft picks and giving them a place to get consistent reps rather than rotting at the end of a professional bench in a suit and tie. I’m not saying the G League will never be a place to make your mark and build a name for yourself, I’m just saying it hasn’t fully happened yet. It was headline news last month when a recruit ditched Syracuse for the NBA’s developmental draft, so it’s getting there, it just hasn’t reached its full potential quite yet. Which is all really just a long winded way of saying that spending a full decade in the G League, taking trips to Maine to play the Red Claws, Fort Wayne to play the Mad Ants, and Erie to play the Bayhawks, with all of your games being broadcast solely on Youtube or Twitch for TEN straight years is a borderline insane commitment to a dream that’s impossible not to respect.

Life told Andre Ingram a billion times he wasn’t going to be an NBA player and the Los Angeles Lakers just told Life to hit the bricks. Don’t let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you, Life, you bum. The G League’s all time leading three point shooter will be in uniform for the team’s remaining two regular season games and if Luke Walton doesn’t let him get any burn he should be arrested. This video gave me the same feelings as those ones where a college gives a senior walk on a scholarship. Seeing Magic Johnson walk into the room after one of the most storied franchises in all of sports tells you they’re going to offer you a contract, fulfilling your lifetime dream after 32 years of hard work, has to be one of the best feelings in the world. I hope Ingram checks in and starts launching like JR Smith. Just let that sucker fly and whatever happens happens. He’s earned the greenest of green lights after all the work he’s put in.