Orlando Magic Play Or Pass: Victor Oladipo
By Luke Duffy
Future
In an ideal world, the Magic would go out and get a guy who can score the basketball at a high rate to pair with Oladipo. This would leave him to guard opponent’s best players, while chipping in with 15-18 points himself and grabbing some rebounds (his 4.2 last season put him eighth in the league among all players in his position, a healthy standing).
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What worries me though, is that this team sees Oladipo as their number one option, and he may fall short of those expectations despite the fact he’s such a capable player. If this scenario went off in another direction, I could absolutely see a time where Oladipo is their star, they make the first round of the playoffs, get bounced and the repeat this cycle for a couple of years.
From there they’d blow it up and start over, and much of that would be because Oladipo was being utilized in the wrong way. I’d also have concerns about how new head coach Scott Skiles connects with him too.
Remember, this will be his third head coach in as many years (Jacque Vaughn and interim head coach James Borrego are the other two) and he needs to given some consistency from the team before he can show them his best.
Really though, Orlando’s future is surely brighter if he is a part of it. He’s got too much talent to not have a positive impact here. At the very worst, he will settle into being an NBA calibre starting guard for the next decade or so. Really though he can be so much more than that, it’s about how the Magic plan on using him in the future that is the important bit.
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