There’s a certain reality about the 16-17 Los Angeles Lakers that Luke Walton is probably already aware of: They’re not going to be very good. The Lakers’ ceiling, if absolutely everything goes right for them, is probably 35 wins, and that is being very generous.

Walton, who left the bench of a team that won more than double that number last season, probably doesn’t expect his first year as a head coach to come with a trip to the playoffs. The question is whether his employers live in the same grounded reality. Because if the Buss family gives Walton the job security that a promising rookie coach taking over a rebuilding project should be afforded, then they’ll be giving him free reign to be the most experimental coach in the NBA.

Number two overall pick Brandon Ingram is the heart of some of the goofy things the Lakers can try this year, but it all starts with Luol Deng.

Deng is such a reliably effective player it’s almost a shame he signed with a team that won’t be in the postseason, but he understandably took the biggest payday he could get in what will be his last long-term contract. If consistency is the metric we’re considering then Deng is the best player on the Lakers’ roster. He has logged too many NBA minutes to reliably defend the league’s quickest small forwards, but he has aged into the prototype for a small ball power forward in the NBA. He’s a terrific three-point shooter, and he has the strength to defend just about any power forward in the league. Albeit on a smaller scale, he has the skillset to enable a team to play effective small ball in a similar way to how Draymond Green’s versatility is key to the Warriors’ success.

If the Lakers want to utilize the $18 million they invested in Deng they will play him at power forward. Their beanstalk of a rookie, Ingram, might have a similar role in his future assuming he puts on some weight. Any form of conventional logic would suggest that for Ingram to play alongside Deng, he would simply slide into the small forward spot. But what if the Lakers went in the other direction with Ingram? What if they played him at center?

The Lakers invested nearly as much money in Timofey Mozgov as they did Deng, but they don’t have an even serviceable backup and expecting him to play 35 productive minutes per game would be wishful thinking considering he’s never done it. So there will be plenty of time to experiment with small ball.

There’s no question that it initially sounds comical to suggest playing the 190 pound Ingram at center, but Ingram’s length, three-point range, and ability to break defenders down off the dribble are just begging to be used in mismatches. Ingram has a raw skillset that can be conceivably molded into playing all five positions.

Traditional player development for a lottery pick is to quickly pinpoint the role a player is best suited for and cultivate him into the best version of that player. If Walton has a certain win total the organization expects him to reach he’ll almost certainly adhere to that philosophy. It’s the same philosophy that saddled Kevin Durant at shooting guard his rookie year.

But Walton came from the Warriors who revolutionized basketball more than any team in the past decade. He understands the advantages of shunning traditions that other teams bind themselves to. The Lakers don’t need to immediately find out what Ingram is best at. They need to be taking notes of all the things he’s good at. That requires patience.

Durant is the most common comparison for Ingram, but there’s never been an offensive player like Durant before and there probably never will be. At barely 19 years old Ingram could develop into a lot of things. Let’s hypothetically say that he becomes an All-Star at the age of 23. That will be during the 2020 season. The league and Ingram can change so drastically four years in the future. Four years ago the Warriors weren’t a playoff team and no one could understand why Draymond Green was worth a first round pick.

So will DeAndre Jordan and Andre Drummond destroy Ingram on the boards? Absolutely. But Ingram is a knock down shooter who thrives in isolation. Neither of those players would feel comfortable guarding him. Plus neither of them have the offensive game to take advantage of their strength anywhere besides on the offensive glass. Players like them get buckets out of the pick and roll or backdoor lob passes. Ingram is so freakishly long, he can break up all kinds of attempted passes if he develops the right instincts.

He won’t win the matchup. But he shouldn’t have to. Would Tariq Black fare much better against elite centers? Because he’s the other option behind Mozgov. Perhaps it could make more sense to play Deng at center and Ingram at power forward, but the key to the experiment is to find mismatches.

D’Angelo Russell and Ingram have plenty to learn in the NBA, but they already know how to get out and run. A lineup of Russell, Lou Williams, Jordan Clarkson, Deng, and Ingram would struggle to get defensive rebounds, but they would take those rebounds and attack in transition aggressively.

If you think this lineup would struggle you might be right. But at the risk of sounding overly negative, keep in mind that the most conservative lineup the Lakers could put out there wouldn’t fare much better, because, well, they don’t have many good players. Exploring Ingram’s versatility is a worthwhile investment. He has the skillset for the Lakers to even try a big lineup of Russell, Ingram, Deng, Larry Nance Jr. and Julius Randle, even if that may seem to be the opposite direction than the one the league is heading in.

Ingram at center could be Walton’s attempt to not only keep up with the league, but to accelerate its evolution. He’s going to lose games. He could lose them and make a splash or lose them the same way Byron Scott did.

Ingram might weigh half as much as Shaq, but Shaq isn’t in the NBA anymore. And that’s kind of the whole point.