King James Hearts Brandon Ingram

If you’re looking for a stamp of approval in the NBA you can’t do much better than getting one from LeBron James. And he’s given one to former Duke star Brandon Ingram, calling him “lil bro” and praising his play thus far for the Lakers.

And in his second game, filling in at point guard, Ingram racked up 31 points, nine rebounds and three steals.

If you look at James as a magnifier of other players, he’s mostly made mediocre players look better than average. Ingram’s biggest problem is he’s bone skinny but that’s improved as he’s gotten older (his NBA draft night suit made him look like Sponge Bob Square Pants so good thing).

He’s long, lanky and fluid so you can imagine James will find fun ways to work with a guy like that. Like this sequence, which LeBron really got pumped up about. Seriously, watch this. It’s amazing.

Incidentally, by our count, excluding the Olympics, Ingram is LeBron’s fourth Blue Devil teammate behind Shane Battier, Kyrie Irving and Rodney Hood.

Note: a better NBA fan than us, Robert tells us that Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer and Dahtnay Jones all played alongside James in Cleveland.