The Indiana Pacers have already won the Victor Oladipo trade

With reports coming out Sunday of former Indiana Pacer Victor Oladipo declining a massive 45.2 million dollar deal, which per Adrian Wojnarowski was the most H-town could offer, the navy and gold and Kevin Pritchard alike most likely have some pretty massive grins on their faces.

At this point, it really doesn’t matter from a value standpoint whether or not Caris LeVert even comes back this season at all, and that’s because the biggest gain of value from this trade was never the 26-year-old talented shooting guard, it was dodging what would have been a devastating max contract to a now declining star in Victor Oladipo.

With Victor Oladipo declining a 45.2 million dollar deal from the Houston Rockets, the Indiana Pacers have already won the Caris Levert-Oladipo trade.

By turning down this deal, Victor is pretty openly telling the rest of the NBA that he wants a four to a five-year deal on substantial money. Let me just reiterate this point: what a bullet dodged by Indiana.

A contract like that would legitimately kill any future chances the ‘Cers have at creating an ideal “championship window”, as it would make signing other necessary players, stars and role player alike, much more difficult when you already have money invested in Turner, Domas, Brogdon, and likey Warren eventually.

Speaking of the Turbonis duo, Oladipo is already old enough to eliminate him from being a logical piece in the team’s future because he just doesn’t fit into the two’s age window. When also accounting for the fact that Oladipo’s supposed “prime years” haven’t been exceptional thus far, it makes the trade even better in hindsight.

In his reclamation of a large scoring load in Houston, it’s been quite rare to see him shoot over 43% from the field, and that’s largely due to an overreliance on an extremely inconsistent jumper.

Not only do the Indiana Pacers get an “addition by subtraction” with the departure of Oladipo but they also get to reap the rewards that a likely 20-point per game scorer in Caris LeVert will likely be on top of that.