How big of a "what if" was Victor Oladipo?

AStark1991 · Post #1 » by **AStark1991** » Wed May 14, 2025 3:12 pm

When the topic of talented young players getting derailed by injuries is discussed the common names that get brought up are guys like Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Derrick Rose and Brandon Roy. Although he wasn’t quite on that level in terms of individual impact, I think Victor Oladipo also deserves to be in the conversation. In my opinion he was the best two-way guard in the league before his injuries started occurring. In the 2017/2018 season there wasn’t a single other perimeter player in the league that was as good as he was on defense while also averaging at least 20 PPG. How decorated of a career do you think he would have had if he managed to stay healthy the whole time?

Post #2 » by **tsherkin** » Wed May 14, 2025 3:38 pm

Didn't stun enough on offense for me to really think of him as a big "what if," to be honest. He didn't have a short game, he didn't have an impressive middle game and he didn't have a reliable three. He had a decent perimeter 2 and was solid at drawing fouls. Hella athletic. But his offensive game was pretty tepid.

Among the names that you listed, he had nothing in common with any of them as an offensive player.

He definitely could have been a solid player, but there is a reason that he only had one season of positive TSAdd (other than his 8-game year in 2022), and it wasn't because he was secretly held back by injuries. From his rookie year in 2014 through 2018, he was generally prettey healthy and he still didn't really put it together on that end. He had the one year where he got his volume up, set a career-high from 3, looked great and won the MIP, but that felt more like a peak than it did like a new standard going forward.

Post #3 » by **Doctor MJ** » Wed May 14, 2025 3:52 pm

AStark1991 wrote:When the topic of talented young players getting derailed by injuries is discussed the common names that get brought up are guys like Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Derrick Rose and Brandon Roy. Although he wasn’t quite on that level in terms of individual impact, I think Victor Oladipo also deserves to be in the conversation. In my opinion he was the best two-way guard in the league before his injuries started occurring. In the 2017/2018 season there wasn’t another perimeter player in the league that was as good as he was on defense while also averaging at least 20 PPG. How decorated of a career do you think he would have had if he managed to stay healthy the whole time?

So, I think Oladipo and all these other guys are kinda the same from a "what if" perspective:

We saw something close to their likely ceiling, they just didn't get to have the normal career arc around that ceiling because of injuries.

With Oladipo what's different is that his NBA career got off to a slow start, and I think that speaks to him being a weaker offensive player than those other guys to some degree. He is weaker than those other guys no doubt, but I also think he could have gotten to his '18-19 levels of success sooner with the right fit around him.

Defensively, he was great, and that's why from a 2-way perspective I hold his full capacity quite high in general, but it's stiff competition when you're talking about the guys above.

Last note: It's particular hard to say we ever really got Roy's ceiling because the roots of his career curtailing were known before he was drafted. What could Roy have been if he just didn't have any such issues? Maybe nothing better, but I don't think we can really say.

Post #4 » by **tsherkin** » Wed May 14, 2025 4:00 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:Last note: It's particular hard to say we ever really got Roy's ceiling because the roots of his career curtailing were known before he was drafted. What could Roy have been if he just didn't have any such issues? Maybe nothing better, but I don't think we can really say.

Also tough to evaluate Roy because the Blazers played such a SLOW brand of basketball. Were he healthy, and playing today? He'd look a lot better, IMHO. He was such a well-controlled, deliberate player. And then he'd just JUMP and you were reminded that he had like a 42" vertical he rarely used because he knew that he didn't need to. He was fun to watch.

One_and_Done · Post #5 » by **One_and_Done** » Wed May 14, 2025 10:09 pm

If it had clicked sooner then he might have saved Rob Hennigan's job. That guy is one of the more unfairly hated on GMs in recent times. He was handcuffed the moment he got there by having to work with Alex Martins; a guy he couldn't fire, who would undermine him with media leaks, and who insisted the team 'win now'.

Look back and Hennigan actually won the Dwight trade he was forced to make, drafted good players like Dipo and A.Gordon, who weren't appreciated at the time, identified T.Harris value early, etc. The guy had poor lotto luck, and was constantly pressured to rush things. Not the best GM, bit certainly underrated.

If Dipo came on earlier and stayed healthy, the Magic could have had a playoff team for a long time built around him, Gordon, Harris and Vooch.

Cavsfansince84 · Post #6 » by **Cavsfansince84** » Wed May 14, 2025 10:35 pm

To me the bigger what ifs are Hawkins if healthy and in the nba, Baylor without all the major/minor injuries, Walton & Penny. Hill we basically saw what he could be and it was a borderline mvp caliber player. The kind of player that might get mvp talk on a 55+ win team. Rose was similar. The guys I mentioned imo could or would have all been top 20 all time type guys. Granted Baylor was like top 15 all time not that long ago but between coming into the league at like 24 and all the injuries I think he still might be top 15 now if he's healthy and he & West manage to win a couple rings together. Victor was going to be a guy who would have gotten a few 2nd/3rd all nba teams under his belt.