Indiana Pacers: 4 players that should be traded before Victor Oladipo
By Josh Wilson
Victor Oladipo has been tossed out as a speculative trade option for the Indiana Pacers. Before they trade him, they should consider these players
I’ve said it before, but it needs to be said again at the top here — The Indiana Pacers should not be considering trading Victor Oladipo.
There have been no reports that the team is shopping his talents. Rather, there have been rumors about the interest from teams like the Miami Heat and New York Knicks should he hit the trading block.
Some have connected the Pacers and Oladipo as a trade piece because of their reported lowball contract extension prior to this season. I’ve already written about how that view is incomplete.
Oladipo is not going anywhere, regardless of the speculation and trade ideas people want to throw out there. It does make some logical sense that the team might consider moving on from him given that he’s a major unknown, having only played 13 games this season with less than confidence-inspiring results.
Still, there should be faith in Oladipo. He’s a consummate professional, a face of the franchise, and as a small market team the Pacers aren’t afforded the promise that a franchise player will walk through the doors within the next decade after Oladipo. The reality is Indiana can’t get a star in return for ‘Dipo right now.
They need to hold him and do everything they can to get him to agree on a contract extension this summer.
Before the team considers trading Oladipo, these four players are options as trade pieces and should be considered long before Oladipo is even considered in a deal.
However unlikely these may be, it should set in the reality even further that Oladipo is far from being moved out of Indiana, unless all of Pacers management is currently going stir crazy.