Victor Oladipo remains the mayor of Indianapolis

The polls are in and it is official: Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo is elected to a second term as mayor with massive support.

Victor Oladipo ain’t scared.

We’ve seen Victor Oladipo deliver the Pacers a victory before and on Wednesday night he proved once again that he is the mayor of Indianapolis.

While the win on Wednesday was in a game where the Pacers should never have trailed as late as they did to the Chicago Bulls, but a win is a win.

The game was on the line as the Pacers still trailed by two points in the fourth quarter with just over 30 seconds remaining. Denzel Valentine dribbled into Bojan Bogdanovic, creating a loose ball situation, and Oladipo took over from there.

Victor Oladipo in the clutch

This is the second time Oladipo’s knocked down a game-winner this season, but while the first was in a surprising victory over the San Antonio Spurs, this one was to salvage an ugly game from the Bulls, who are 3-20 on the season.

Put a red flag up as there are things the Pacers need to work on — Oladipo said as much in his on-court interview — but it’s hard to find the cloud on this silver lining.

Oladipo not only possesses the swagger needed to make game-winning shots, but the Pacers know the ball should be in his hands as well when the clock is winding down.

This isn’t a shot at Paul George — you know my feelings on that — but Oladipo already showed us twice this season that he has ‘it’, the special quality that not every player has when the clock is winding down.

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Defining ‘it’ is next to impossible, but we can define both the quality and the quantity of Victor Oladipo’s game so far this season.

Victor’s stat line from the night — 27 points on 50% shooting, 8 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 assists — shows that while the rest of the team was struggling, he still kept on the beat. His averages this season — 23.3 points on 48.3% shooting, 5.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.1 blocks — show us that he is nothing like the player he was in the past.

Oladipo’s season is much like the Pacers as it is proceeding better than expected. Early in his career, this type of play was expected from Oladipo, but he never put it together. His role last season limited how he could play, but now we see that Oladipo is the player the Orlando Magic thought he could be. Too bad for them and the Oklahoma City Thunder that he is now back home in Indiana.

Welcome home

“I’m home and here to stay,” he told Fox Sports Indiana’s Jerimiah Johnson during the post-game interview. As long as the Pacers pay him, why would he want to go anywhere else? There is no question Oladipo is playing the best basketball of his career back in the Hoosier state. And as long as he continues to play like this, the state will embrace him as well.

We keep asking if this is sustainable, the 48.1% spot-up shooting on 3-pointers, the late-game heroics, and generally being one of the best players in the league so far this season. In the past, he has bottomed out at some point, but this version of Oladipo shows no signs of stopping.

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Even if he goes through a rough stretch at some point, he elevated his game to a point we may not notice it nearly as much. But after 25 games, this is clearly a different Victor Oladipo than we’ve ever seen.