Victor Oladipo’s numbers are out of this world right now, but does that mean he is destined to fall back to earth at some point?
Victor Oladipo is too good to be true for the Indiana Pacers.
Oladipo looks like an All-Star as he knocks down game-winners and leads the Pacers with 23.3 points a game. He makes 48.3% of his shots and knocks down 43.7% of his attempts from beyond the arc.
We’ve never seen Oladipo play like this in his career. Even when you throw out his numbers from last season, you rarely find anywhere in his splits where he showed this sort of dominance.
Oladipo had his moments, but he never sustains his numbers for an extended period of time. Before this season, Oladipo only averaged above 20 points a game in March of 2016 and a pair of months in 2015. So in four years, that’s only three months where you could even think about adding him to the elite scorer conversation in any way, shape, or form.
And that’s why you have to wonder if this is really too good to be true for him and the Pacers.
Much like the Pacers themselves in the past, December isn’t a great month for Oladipo. In his career, December is when things start to bottom out for him. He shot 42.8% from the field and 32.4% from range in his career, but this season he his shooting 57.7% and 43.5%, respectively, through three December games.
The question that needs to be asked is if Victor Oladipo truly evolved as a player. We rarely, if ever, see players make a jump like this. After four seasons in the NBA, most players’ trajectories are set. They may get better, learn new tricks, but there aren’t many examples of guys leaping up from one tier to another.
Even if he stayed in Orlando last season, his previous history pegged him as a talented but ultimately limited scorer. His shooting never held up to make him a consistent threat night in and night out, much less month to month.
But there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.
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Oladipo didn’t just change his body since last season, he also changed how he played the game.
Thanks to his controlled freelancing on defense, he turns steals into buckets as roughly a fifth of his points now come off turnovers. He scores around two more points a game on the fast break thanks to these mistakes by his opponents as well as by setting the pace when he gets the ball in his hands. We see time and time again how he gets points purely by beating the defense down the court or before they can get set.
Only in his second season did he get more points in the paint, but with 8.4 this season, roughly a third come from there. It makes it no surprise then that this season’s 3.8 fouls a game are close to that 2014-15 season’s 3.6 a game. Oladipo’s speed and aggressiveness simply force opponents to foul him or give him easy buckets.
The part that’s different from the past but that still scares me is the shooting numbers. Yes, we’re past the quarter mark of the season and the shots are still falling, but this isn’t like when Kemba Walker suddenly got better at knocking down 3-pointers. As far as I can tell, Oladipo didn’t make any major changes to his shot in the offseason like Walker did a few years ago.
But then again, Oladipo’s improvement in shooting might be coming from the fact he is taking fewer shots when he his covered as tightly. More of his shots are of the “open” variety according to NBA.com in comparison to last season and or even his best season with the Orlando Magic.
A mix of his teammates opening up the floor (thanks, Bojan) and his new style of play is creating those easier chances. If players sag off to stop him from getting to the basket, Oladipo knocks down a 3-pointer. If they press him, they may find themselves watching him fly by on his way to the rim.
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Healthy skepticism makes us think that Oladipo’s numbers will return to earth at some point, but if he continues to play in his more aggressive style, then maybe his feet won’t ever touch the ground.