Is Victor Oladipo already out the door with the Pacers?

Indiana Pacers star shooting guard Victor Oladipo has left many Pacers fans wondering what his status going forward with the team will be.

Victor Oladipo may have already played his last game with the Indiana Pacers. With misleading quotes and oddly timed posts on social media, it’s hard to say what the future holds for the Thingamajig. Bottom line is, the Pacers have him for at least the 2021 NBA season before his unrestricted free agency.

As many Pacers fans remember, Victor Oladipo was, as reported by Shams Charania, set on not returning to play in the NBA Bubble before going through practice or games. This was a result of him wanting to keep a close eye on his knee and would cautiously move forward to play only if said knee felt strong enough for him to do so. (The tweet below features a paywall from The Athletic).

While that makes sense after taking a long break from actual NBA games and trying to ramp up to playing speed, after a few practices Shams tweeted that there was growing belief Pacers star Victor Oladipo would attempt to play in the NBA’s restarted season after multiple strong team practices in Orlando. This was the beginning of the weird stream of signs from Victor and his team, as well as fans already knew that he wouldn’t agree on a contract extension earlier in the year.

Flash forward to the 2020 NBA playoffs where the Pacers would take on the now Eastern Conference Finals Champion Miami Heat, where Miami would beat Indiana four games to none. It was obvious Victor wasn’t one hundred percent right. He had sloppy ball-handling that lead to many turnovers, showed signs of his former self, but also showed something new.

During these playoffs, Victor shot at least 10 threes a game, bumping his season average from 5.5 to 8.3 attempts per game, which is only that low because he did not play in Game 1 of the playoffs. This could be due to his lack of explosion or shaky confidence with handling the ball but either way is worth noting for the future player Victor could be.

Now it is obvious why Miami would be intriguing for Oladipo, the team that could offer him a lot of money in Miami, where he already has a house, and a team that has made its way to the NBA finals as a fifth seed and promising young talent. In his recent interview with Fat Joe on Instagram Live where he said,

"“I want to be able to show my kids, when I have them, how great of a player I was, and in order to do that, you gotta show them some hardware. So that’s what I’m locked in on doing, man. I want some hardware and I want a lot of hardware.”"

So sticking with the team that doesn’t want to pay as much as he wants to be paid and hasn’t left the first round of the playoffs since 2014 doesn’t seem like the best fit for him given those facts going forward. Victor also gave the infamous “I’m a Pacer” quote that former Pacers star Paul George said before his trade request back in 2017.

However, Victor will still have to prove that he is still worth that money in this upcoming 2021 season, and as these are just rumors, we won’t truly know what the future will hold for this Pacers team.