Indiana Pacers’ injured star, Victor Oladipo took time off his ongoing rehabilitation to add a voice in the locker room for his teammates, and they stormed to victory against Miami Heat.
Sports247.ng gathered that Oladipo might have shown signs of a future in basketball coaching, as the youngster talked up his teammates on an evening they were struggling against The Heat.
Oladipo, whose season-ending injury occurred in the same area of his right knee that forced him to miss 11 games earlier this season, helped turn things round when he met with his teammates in Miami.
Soon afrer, Indiana beat Heat 95-88, marking their the first victory in a five-game streak going into Monday’s home game against Charlotte Bobcats, but they are still No. 3 in the Eastern Conference standings.
With that victory sealed, Oladipo says he hopes to play an active role in the Pacers’ fate, and is working hard to ward off controversies over the latest injury, which many fear is related to the previous one.
There is no timetable for his return from the injury he copped January 23, but Oladipo acknowledged the soreness he felt in November and December was in the same general area as the serious injury – just above the right knee.
A few days before he went down, while scrambling back on defense against Toronto, Pacers fans openly questioned whether Oladipo was 100 percent and cited, in part, Oladipo’s statistical decline.
He averaged 23.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.4 steals, all career bests, in 2017-18 when he made his first All-Star appearance and was named the league’s Most Improved Player.
This season he averaged 18.8 points and 1.7 steals, his rebounding total increased to 5.6, and was selected to his second All-Star team following the injury.
While Oladipo declined to draw a direct link between the initial pain and the ruptured quad tendon, he acknowledged the surgeons removed all “unnecessary things” in the right knee.
After beating Toronto on the night Oladipo was taken off the court on a stretcher, Pacers lost their next four games, their longest skid in more than 12 months, and he felt as if he had let down his teammates.
For now, Oladipo remains in Miami, on crutches, working his way back into shape so he can return to Indianapolis before the end of this season after rupturing the quad tendon in his knee.
Oladipo added: “It was just a freak accident. If I have my two cents or if I see something, I might text the players or coach.
“In the quad tendon area, very similar. (I was) just doing the necessary things they felt was best to get stronger.
“I can’t say it’s related, but I really wouldn’t know. I can’t really say it is not related because I wouldn’t know that, either.
“Sure, it might be connected but who knows. I’m not focused on the past because I have no control over that just like I have no control over the future.
“But for the most part when they came and visited me in Miami, I told them what I thought they needed to hear. The team is very capable of doing special things without me.”
