Orlando Magic: 5 key players that got away
By Luke Duffy
1. Victor Oladipo
There can really only be one answer for No. 1, although it wasn’t always this way. Many were glad to see the back of Victor Oladipo when he was sent to the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016.
That the Magic got a quality player in Serge Ibaka in return was even better, and helped to erase some of the memories from that one-sided Harris deal.
Even though Ibaka never quite worked out in Orlando, Oladipo became a bystander with a front row seat to Russell Westbrook‘s MVP tour, and did little himself.
This season, though, everything has changed. Oladipo was been among the 15 best players in the league for virtually the entire campaign so far.
We may have Dwyane Wade to thank for unleashing this monster, as Oladipo ranks 12th in the entire league in scoring (24.5 points per game).
Unsurprisingly his net rating (+6.3), PIE (15.3), PER (24.5) and 3-point shooting (42.1 percent) are miles better than they’ve been at any point in his five-year career.
More than that though, Oladipo has breathed new life into a franchise in Indiana that was supposed to take a massive step back when Paul George was traded for Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis.
That may come to be Oladipo’s greatest achievement, making a city that cares more about college basketball fall back in love with its NBA team again.
If the season ended today, the case could be made for Oladipo to earn All-NBA honors, as well as the Most Improved Player of the Year award. Barring catastrophe, he will be a first-time All-Star too.
All of this could have been Orlando’s, but they decided to go in a different direction and not extend Oladipo, opting to trade him before his rookie deal was up.
At one point, the four-year, $82 million deal the Thunder gave him that they got out from under looked a great move. Now, not so much.
Next: 2017-18 Week 13 NBA Power Rankings
Nobody saw it coming, but this will undoubtedly remain the biggest slip up the Magic made in their quest to become relevant again. This haunting is only beginning.