TORONTO — Toronto Raptors forward Brandon Ingram will replace the injured Steph Curry in this season’s All-Star Game at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., the league announced.
Ingram, 28, is averaging 22 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists this season for the 32-22 Raptors, who have been one of the NBA’s surprise teams. This is Ingram’s second All-Star appearance and first since the 2019-20 season, when he was still with the New Orleans Pelicans. He joins teammate Scottie Barnes, who was named an All-Star reserve earlier this month.
Ingram struggled to stay healthy over his last few years with New Orleans, playing just 18 games last year before he was traded to the Raptors in February. He didn’t play his first game for Toronto until this preseason, as he recovered from a badly sprained ankle.
“It was definitely one of my goals, to make All-Star,” Ingram said Tuesday after the Raptors’ practice. They close out the pre-All-Star portion of their schedule with a home game against Detroit on Wednesday. “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. I knew I was going to find it sooner or later. I knew it was going to be before All-Star. 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.”
The Raptors’ staff informed Ingram that he had made the game in the middle of Tuesday’s practice. Ingram said that Raptors coach Darko Rajaković, who will coach Team World, jumped on him, and that he was the last to know. The Raptors called off the rest of the practice after that.
The new All-Star Game format, which pits two teams of American-born players and one team of international stars in a round-robin tournament, enables the NBA to replace Curry, a Western Conference player, with Ingram, an Eastern Conference player.
Ingram’s girlfriend, the rapper GloRilla, will be in the celebrity game on All-Star Friday. Ingram joked after he was not initially named a reserve that he wasn’t going to watch her in Los Angeles, although he said Tuesday that he just hadn’t made up his mind yet.
Many members of the Raptors, most notably Barnes, were not happy when Ingram was initially left off the list of All-Star reserves.
“I don’t know how (he didn’t make it),” Barnes said last week. “He’s been balling. He’s been doing so much for our team. To be where our team was at last year to this year, his impact on our team is just instrumental to our success. So it’s just ridiculous that he’s not there.”
“I think (with) what our team accomplished so far in the second year of a rebuild, the way Scottie (Barnes) is playing this season, the way (Ingram) is playing this season, I think those two guys deserve consideration, nomination and to be announced as All-Stars tonight,” Rajaković said before his team’s 107-100 win over the Utah Jazz on Feb. 1. “We’ll take it. We’ll take both of those guys being in the All-Star Game.”
“I wasn’t selected to be an All-Star right away. I was a replacement,” Ingram said Tuesday. “I’m motivated. I’m inspired by that. I’m not where I want to be at this point of the season, for sure. I give myself grace because I hadn’t played (much) at all last year. I know every time I step on the floor, every time I come on the floor and put this work in that I’m evolving. I want to do something more. I want to be a better defensive player. I want to shoot the basketball off the dribble better. I want to do everything better. I think the second half of the season is a good time to show who I can be and who I’m evolving into even more.”
Curry has missed the Golden State Warriors’ last four games with a knee injury. Monday, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Curry would not play in the All-Star Game but hopes to return in Golden State’s first game after the All-Star break.