Andre Ingram and Renaldo Major: The Forefathers Of The G League
At the same time that we look to the G League to find future NBA talent, let's take time to honor Andre Ingram and Renaldo Major, the forefathers of the G League
If you were to ask me to show you a singular picture that represents the G League’s history, it would be this. Despite the image itself being current, as it was taken right before a January 18th matchup between the Sioux Falls Skyforce and the South Bay Lakers, the two men grinning have been connected to league longer than most of the teams that represent it today.
On the left is Renaldo Major, the current assistant coach for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. While this position with the team represents a way for him to get a start in the new chapter of his basketball career, it also marks a return to one of the many areas where he honed his craft as a player. In the prior installment of his life, the son of Chicago lived the life of a basketball nomad.
Along with a run with Sioux Falls in 2005-06 when that team was still in the CBA, he’s applied his trade in the likes of Gary, Indiana; Dodge City, Kansas; Bismark, North Dakota; Bakersfield, California; Yakima, Washington; Kansas City, Missouri; Moncton, New Brunswick; Guanabo, Puerto Rico, Monterrery, Mexico; Joenssu, Finland; and finally a brief 10-day stint in Oakland with the Golden State Warriors.
In the midst of spending life living out of the suitcase, Major played his best ball in Bakersfield and Bismark, where he played with the Bakersfield Jam and Dakota Wizards, respectively. With Dakota, he had a phenomenal 2006-07 season that saw him become a champion, be named as the D-League’s Defensive Player of the Year, and spent one game as a Warrior. Meanwhile in Bakersfield, he spent five seasons as a solid veteran asset and compiled the numbers that currently have him sitting as the D/G League’s all-time leader in points, steals, and free throws made.
Standing to his right showing off a five-star grin is Andre Ingram. Among the duo, Andre is definitely the most recognizable due to his brief stints with the Lakers in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, the then-32 year old caught fire in a nationally televised game against the Houston Rockets where he shot 6-8 from the field and 4-5 from beyond the arc with the ecstatic voices of Kevin Harlan and Reggie Miller serving as the soundtrack.
However, Andre’s professional life has been more than hitting 3’s in the face of Luc Mbah a Moute and chatting it up with Pat Sajak on Wheel of Fortune. Ingram stands as a brother in arms with Major in the calvary of ballers that has utilized the NBA D/G League to keep playing the game that they love and maintain that dream that’s been etched into their heart since childhood.
For Ingram, that run has persisted since 2007 when the American University alum was selected in the 7th round by the Utah Flash. In the fifteen years since then, Ingram has gone on to be a mainstay in the league with a four-year stint in Utah before heading off to Cali for his current run with the Los Angeles D-Fenders/South Bay Lakers.
No matter the team, Ingram’s status as an incredible knockdown shooter has persisted. Shooting 45% from beyond the arc over the course of his career, Ingram has made 839 three-poiners and counting. Not only does that place him at the top spot in three-pointers made, it’s not even close as Reggie Hearn sits second after making 634 perimeter bombs.
For both Ingram and Major, their status on top of various all-time G League leaderboards came with a tremendous amount of struggle. Whether it was the strain of sitting in coach section on flights despite being too tall for those seats, playing in half-empty arenas, or living out of a suitcase traveling from small city to small city hoping that your next performance vaults you to the promised land.
Going through all of that in an era where the most lucrative salary for a player to make in the league was at only $25,500 per year is the type of persistance that is depressing and honorable. The fact that they went through that tremendous grind and struggle and got paid so little is just something that shouldn’t have been the case. However, that unfortunately has been the norm for minor league athletes, no matter if we’re talking about the D/G League or the thousands that are playing minor league baseball.
Although they never reached the heights of G League alums like Robert Covington, Christian Wood, or Alex Caruso, they stand as the forefathers of a league that is currently at heights that neither of them probably anticipated. Before almost every NBA team had their own affiliate and there were squads like the NBA G League Ignite or Capitanes, these two men were blazing the trail for both current and future G Leaguers to follow. So while we look around the G League to try to find future NBA players, let’s take time to honor and respect the legacies of Renaldo Major and Andre Ingram.