Victor Oladipo has a similar big impact, just in a different way

Victor Oladipo’s second season with the Indiana Pacers has been much different from his first, but he is still showcasing his huge impact in a new role.

A cursory glance at Victor Oladipo’s basketball reference page shows a player who is struggling to replicate the stats that he was able to put up just one season ago. His shooting splits are down, his scoring is down, and he just looks like he is going through some sort of regression for the Indiana Pacers.

Au Contraire.

Vic is playing an entirely different game this season compared to last. He is seeing different coverages and he has been forced to adapt his game and play style. He spoke to VICE Sports Michael Pina about it:

“Things are different now. Teams are playing me different. Teams are playing in drops now, trying to do a great job at switching, making sure I don’t get to the rim as easy as I did last year. So there are some things I have to adjust to.”

The numbers agree with Vic’s sentiment. He’s only taking 22.4 percent of his shots this season from 0-3 feet, a career low. Not a Pacers low, a career low. Teams are throwing coverages at him like never before to prevent him from getting to the basket, and they are succeeding.

Oladipo was a monster at the rim last year, hitting 69 percent of his looks. Teams are reluctant to let him get to the hole. But as opposing defenses sell out to stop Oladipo from getting those shots, he adapts and is figuring out a way to beat them.

How he does it is by giving up the ball to his fellow Pacers. When Vic begins to charge up and attack the rim, opposing defenses load up the paint and send a second, sometimes even a third, defender. That leaves Vic without a ton of space to operate in the lane:

The Pistons load up the area around the paint as Oladipo drives – they will do whatever they can to stop him. But Vic has figured out that his teammates are the easy solution to beat these coverages. On the possession from the picture above, all it took was one hard extra dribble from Oladipo at the free throw line to keep the defenders drawn in, and then boom, he flips it to Myles Turner, who is wide open as the D attempts to stop Victor:

This Victor Olaidpo – the one who defers to others and creates opportunities for his teammates – plays a less sexy brand of basketball. There’s fewer dunks, fewer 25+ point games, and fewer highlights in general. But there are more, and I mean way more, good opportunities to score for other non-Vic Pacers when he plays like this.

He’s firing the ball to a teammate on 34.4 percent of his drives, up quite a bit from his 28.8 percent last season. That isn’t worse for the team, it’s just different. He is still helping his team win and score points, just in a much different way.

He is helping his team a ton, in fact. Each starter sees a boost to their offensive rating when they share the floor with Victor, evidence that he offers them better opportunities to score and more open lanes to attack:

These guys just get better shots when they with Vic. With Victor Oladipo on the floor. Darren Collison sees his true shooting percentage rise from 51.4% without Vic to 57.6% with him, for example. Oladipo draws the focus of the defense, and the rest of the team capitalizes.

A result of this is Oladipo’s assist percentage ballooning – it is all the way up to 24.4 percent. By my count, that puts him 8th amongst shooting guards in the NBA, behind James Harden, Devin Booker, Lou Williams, DeMar DeRozan, Jamal Crawford, and Dwayne Wade. 8th isn’t like so impressive by itself, but over half of those guys are the only shot creator on their team. Of course, they are going to have a higher percentage of their team’s assists. When you add context, you really see how effective of a passer Oladipo has been this year.

That assist rate is up 3 percent over last season while Oladipo’s usage is actually down 3 percent. To dish out career-high assist number while actually getting the ball less than last season is more evidence of Oladipo’s new penchant for deferring to the open man.

The Indiana Pacers, meanwhile, are starting to adapt their playstyle to support a passing Victor Oladipo. When a pick and roll happens with Oladipo as the ball handler, Nate McMillan will stick two shooters in each corner, daring defenses to slide in and help stop Vic. Do that, and you concede a corner 3:

13 percent of Oladipo’s assists are leading to corner 3s this season, up 3 percent over last year. As teams have adapted to Victor’s excellent ability to take the ball to the rim, the Indiana Pacers have altered their strategy to beat that adaptation.

Victor Oladipo isn’t the 20+ per game scorer he was last year. Right now, the Indiana Pacers don’t need him to be that guy. As he sees different coverages and schemes from opposing defenses, he has altered his game to be successful and keep the Pacers rolling.

And it’s working. Expect to see Vic play this way until opposing teams find a new, equally ineffective strategy to try and stop him.