The former Sporting News Men’s College Basketball Player of the year and Co-NABC Defensive Player of the year, was drafted 2nd Overall by the Orlando Magic in 2013. He was then traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016 and was then shipped to the Indiana Pacers in 2017. From that point, he has blossomed as the team’s leading scorer and won the NBA Most Improved Player for the 2017-2018 season along with being named in the NBA All-Defensive First Team.
2018-2019 season was quite rough for Oladipo as he missed most of the season with a right knee injury and a ruptured quad tendon even though he was selected as an Eastern Conference All-Star reserve.
2019-2020 wasn’t much better for him as he returned on Jan 29, 2020 and scored 9 points in 21 minutes. He was just able to play a few games before the NBA suspended the season on March 12, 2020.
Oladipo is currently in a 4-year, $85m contract that he signed on 2017 and ends on 2021. At the same time, the pacers are currently 29th in the league in Salary with $114m and 5m above the $109m salary cap, due to committed salaries, largely, to Malcom Brogdon (20m), Myles Turner ($18m), TJ Warren (10m) and Jeremy Lamb ($10m).
The Indiana Pacers have been known to be a conservative, small market. The last time they paid luxury tax was in the 05-06 season. They have been careful to offer max dollars to any player. In 2013, Paul George was signed by Indiana for a 5-year $90m extension. To put perspective to that, he was the 17th highest paid player right behind Rudy Gay ($19m), Carlos Boozer ($16m) , Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. He did have a 30% kicker because he was named All-NBA team in the 2013-2014 season.
As for Oladipo, the he turned down a $4-year $80m extension from the Pacers. The team has $125m committed to salary for the 20-21 season. The$80m extension already puts them above the luxury tax and they do not seem to be ready to pay that punitive fine with a non-contending team. A max contract would be a 5-year $211,932,000 and would pay him approximately $36,540,000/year.
It’s a make or break season for the Pacers. It’s either they go young, or go big.
Sources: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/awards/tsn-poy.html https://www.nabc.com/awards/dpoy https://www.nba.com/article/2020/03/11/coronavirus-pandemic-causes-nba-suspend-season https://www.spotrac.com/nba/indiana-pacers/victor-oladipo-13315/ https://hoopshype.com/salaries/indiana_pacers/ https://hoopshype.com/2018/11/16/how-many-times-has-each-nba-team-paid-the-luxury-tax/ https://hoopshype.com/salaries/players/2014-2015/ https://www.sunnewsonline.com/oladipo-turns-down-pacers-80m-contract-extension/Victor Oladipo and his bargain contract
