Watching Oladipo Blow Up = Depressing

[npiper17]

Honestly I feel like his time in OKC playing alongside a truly great player contributed a great deal to his rise. Showed him what it took to be a great player in this league, then after dipo took his body to the next level and then his game to the next level.

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You probably feel this because Victor himself has said this on more than occasion. He gives a lot of credit to that year in OKC where he was shown what you have to do to reach that star status.

It wouldn’t have happened in Orlando which is partly the fault of Victor (I just don’t think he was ever in great shape when he was here) and partly the fault of the management team that was in place at the time.

[npiper17]

No joke, tons of Magic fans are already saying "AG is not worth the money that he'll be commanding this summer." ... and "Jonathan Isaac plays the same position so it's not worth paying AG."

This is Victor vs Evan, rinse and repeat.

they drafted Isaac when this team clearly needed a point guard
this organisation is creating problems for themsleves ...still we have to a will sign AG but 1-2 years from now theres going to be a problem and we will sell AG pennies on a dollar to clear space for Isaac

Bingo.

But then people will say “he was BPA it was worth it.” Really? How can you tell at this point?

Is it going to be worth it when this team still has no identity, a collection of front court players, unmovable veteran contracts, and no prospects in free agency?

Man, some of the posters here might be on watch if Isaac pans out like AG did at the 3.

I’ve always thought AG and the 4 and Isaac at the 5 was the long long term goal.

[SD2042]

Fans in general (but especially on this board) undersell how much players games can change from year to year just by diet, practice, learning the NBA, growing up, etc. We give up on tons of these dudes before their primes and then we're always like "welp, they couldn't have done that here!" or are surprised when they become different players altogether.

It's as big as people doubting Oladipo would become anything but a role player, or even as small as Dedmon adding a 3 point shot to his game. I hate reading proclamations of how Elfrid would never become a good shooter, how Isaac will never be able to play center, Mario never being NBA talent, how Gordon can't play SF ever again (even though he's 10x the PF right now).

We simply don't foster that sort of environment to fully grow with the management and coaching we've had the past 4-5 years.

That's the problem. The issue is that he never would have reached this ceiling in Orlando. That's not an indictment on him so much as it is on the Magic. Player development has flat out sucked. Why did it take getting traded twice to figure out how to max his potential? I get that he needed to run with Westbrook to understand what it takes, but until the Magic figure out how to develop all-stars, there's no reason to think this won't happen again.

Things happen for a reason. Sometimes beyond our own understanding. Sometimes it takes the right situation to learn from the wrong situation we can find ourselves regardless if it's by someone's hand or by our own hand. Situations like these speaks a lot to the person it happens to and who controls the situation. Can we learn from our situation in order to grow up from those experiences. It's possible. It just depends on the person and the circumstances we find ourselves in.