The Pelicans practically told him as much. Heading into the 2024 offseason, Ingram felt he rushed back from his knee injury to play in one of the team’s two Play-In games and, when Williamson got injured, the Pelicans’ four-game sweep defeat to the nascent Thunder. Ingram said he did not have the same burst that he would have liked in that series, but felt he had sacrificed for the team. “I was going into my contract year. Going into negotiations and hearing the numbers from (David Griffin, the former top decision-maker with the Pelicans), I felt like my value wasn’t there anymore,” Ingram said. “I left (New Orleans) and spent the summer by myself. I started thinking. … We talked contract in the summertime. We just didn’t get to a point where I thought it was the value of me. During that summer, I figured, from both sides, we thought it was time for a change.”
