The Indiana Pacers have fallen on hard times recently due to the absence of Victor Oladipo. Here’s an in-depth look at the statistical impact Oladipo has on the team.
With Wednesday night’s 122-101 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, the Indiana Pacers have now lost five consecutive games — the last four without star shooting guard Victor Oladipo on the court.
Oladipo has been struggling with a sore right knee, and the team considers his status day-to-day. After being evaluated again on Thursday, Oladipo hopes to play when the Pacers host the Chicago Bulls on Saturday.
Indiana is 19-14 with Oladipo in the lineup this season; they’re 0-5 in games he has missed. Those results certainly give a hint as to how valuable Oladipo is to this team, but let’s dig into things a little further and get into the specifics of how his presence affects the Pacers.
In terms of traditional statistics, Indiana has struggled in virtually every category since Oladipo’s knee injury occurred — the Pacers’ productivity has been suffering in the key areas of field goal percentage (47.9 percent before, 45.5 pervent after) and 3-point percentage (38.7 percent before, 34.5 percent after).
Worse shooting is just the start, as the club is also performing worse in rebounding average (42.0 per game down to 38.8), turnovers (13.7 to 14.5 per game), steals (7.9 to 7.0 per game) and blocked shots (4.6 to 4.3 per game) since Oladipo’s knee problem flared up.
Without Victor Oladipo, the #Pacers are sinking.
— Kevin Bowen (@KBowen1070) January 5, 2018
It’s a team void of anyone else capable of taking that lead scoring role without their star.https://t.co/zmvTb6Qsrj
The Pacers are actually up slightly in assists per game over the last four contests (22.6 per game to 23.3), and that makes sense since Oladipo has been a high-usage player this season and his minutes have mostly been taken by Lance Stephenson, who is arguably the best passer on the team.
A look at the advanced statistics shows what is perhaps an even more dramatic difference when Victor Oladipo does not play. There is a massive gap in both offensive rating (108.3 vs. 100.6) and defensive rating (106.4 vs. 117.5) before and after Oladipo’s recent absence.
There has also been a significant drop-off in effective field goal percentage (53.6 percent to 49.9 percent) and true shooting percentage (56.8 percent to 52.9 percent). The club’s pace has also been negatively impacted by the loss of Oladipo, going from 99.4 to 96.1 since his injury.
Indiana has actually improved a bit in rebounding percentage over the last four games, but that is once again a function of seeing more of Stephenson on the floor — he’s one of the elite rebounding guards in the NBA.
As one might hope, several players have stepped up in Oladipo’s absence, including Darren Collison, Cory Joseph, Joe Young and the aforementioned Lance Stephenson.
Interestingly, all three of the other regular starters — Myles Turner, Thaddeus Young and Bojan Bogdanovic — have seen a dip in their production over the past four contests.
Turner has had a very rough time of late, posting averages of 9.8 points and 4.3 rebounds per game on 37.1 percent shooting from the field, which includes 14.3 percent from behind the 3-point line.
Young has also been playing poorly during the losing streak, with per game averages of 7.8 points and 3.3 rebounds on shooting splits of .395/.143/.000. Bogdanovic’s offensive numbers have also been down across the board since Oladipo’s injury.
It’s clear that Victor Oladipo contributes to his team in a multitude of ways, and the losses have piled up during his time off the court. Any time a player of his caliber goes down, however, others need to pick up the slack.
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Starting point guard Darren Collison and the Pacers’ bench have generally come through, but the other starters have amplified the loss of Oladipo by playing some of their worst basketball of the season when the team has needed them the most — thus the major slump the club is now enduring.