The 3 most impactful injuries in recent Indiana Pacers history
The Indiana Pacers have had some injury luck in their recent history. These are the three injuries that punished them the most.
By Ryan Stano
Everyone hates injuries. Unfortunately, they are a part of the game. The Pacers know that better than any franchise in the last 20 years or so. They have had to deal with injuries to their star players that, in some cases, took them out of contention to win a title.
One of the things Pacers fans are hoping for right now is to avoid injuries to the current team. Myles Turner's finger injury isn't great, but that shouldn't have a lasting effect on him or the team. There are three injuries in recent history that definitely had a last effect on both the player and the team.
Two of these injuries were big enough to me that I remember where I was when they happened. They changed the course of how those seasons were going and the trajectory of the Pacers as a franchise. The other one ended up being just as big.
Let's start with the the first injury on the list.
3. Victor Oladiop blows out his quad
Victor Oladipo was the best player on the Pacers during the 2018-19 season. He was an All-Star and was coming off a season in which he was named an All-NBA player. The Pacers were fresh off pushing the eventual Eastern Conference Champion Cavaliers to seven games in the first round.
Pacers fans were expecting even better things from their young team in this season. Oladipo was still very good and Domantas Sabonis was starting to become a big problem for teams as well. It looked like the Pacers were going to be perennial playoff contenders.
Then Oladipo blew out his quad against the Raptors. He was taken off on a stretcher and missed the rest of the season. He would only play 19 games the following season and would play just 28 total games with the Pacers following the injury. He was traded to Houston during the 2020-21 season.
That injury derailed Oladipo's career. He has never been the same player. Since getting hurt, he has played in just 116 games in the last five seasons. He's out of the league now and hasn't played at all this year. It has been a rotation of quad and knee issues that has kept Oladipo from being a good player.
It's truly a shame what happened to him. He was set to be the Pacers' franchise guy before that terrible injury. Now, he's fighting just to keep his career alive. The next player on this list also had his career cut short by the injury he suffered.