Eight years ago, Victor Oladipo was one of the best guards in the NBA. At 25, he was an All-Star, made one of the league’s three All-NBA teams and led Indiana to Game 7 of a first-round playoff series against LeBron James and Cleveland. Today, at 34, his request to NBA teams is much more modest. He is not asking for a major role, money or the status he once had, only an opportunity to be an NBA player again.
That is why, at the beginning of September, he published an open letter to NBA general managers. His message came down to a few sentences: he believes his body is finally healthy, that he can still play winning basketball and contribute to an NBA team. All he is asking from the people who build rosters is a chance to prove it.
Indiana Showed What Oladipo Could Become
The fact that a former No. 2 pick and two-time All-Star now has to publicly explain why he deserves a place in the league says plenty about how far his career has moved from the path it once appeared to be taking in Indiana. In 2017-18, Oladipo averaged 23.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists and a league-leading 2.4 steals per game. He won Most Improved Player, made the All-NBA Third Team and All-Defensive First Team, and even received MVP votes. In the playoffs, Indiana pushed Cleveland to seven games in the first round. Oladipo recorded a triple-double in Game 6 to extend the series against a team that would reach the NBA Finals a few weeks later.
His time in Orlando and Oklahoma City had seemed like a prelude to the peak of his career. Indiana put the ball and responsibility in his hands, and for the first time he found himself in a system that allowed him to combine athleticism, defense and creation off the dribble. The problem is that this version of Oladipo effectively lasted only a season and a half.
The First Knee Injury Changed Everything
In January 2019, he ruptured the quadriceps tendon in his right knee. It was an extremely serious injury, and his recovery lasted a year. Oladipo later admitted that even after rehabilitation, he still was not right. During the NBA bubble in 2020, he played despite significant pain whenever he put serious pressure on the knee. He kept trying, believing his body simply needed more time to get back to normal.
Only after a second operation on his right quadriceps in May 2021 did it become clearer how serious the problem had been. Surgeon Jonathan Glashow, who performed the procedure, told ESPN that he was surprised Oladipo had been able to play at all given the condition of the tendon. According to Glashow, it had not been properly reattached, which required another reconstruction.
Miami Gave Him a Way Back Until Another Knee Gave Out
Oladipo was back at the beginning of another rehabilitation process. He did not return to the court until March 2022 with Miami, playing eight games in his first season after surgery and 42 the following year. He was no longer an All-Star around whom an offense was built, but he had reclaimed a place in an NBA rotation and, after several lost years, appeared to have found a way to continue his career in a different role. Then, on April 22, 2023, he was back on the floor again…
In the fourth quarter of Game 3 of Miami’s first-round series against Milwaukee, Oladipo injured his left knee without contact. Imaging revealed a torn patellar tendon. It was his third major surgery in a little more than four years. Victor Oladipo has not played another NBA game since that night.
Plenty of players his age still hold meaningful NBA roles, but Oladipo’s issue is his body, which for a long time has given teams little reason to trust it. Since the 2018-19 season, he has never played more than 42 games in a year. He changed teams several times in the meantime, and after his 2023 injury his name continued to appear in transactions even though he was not ready to play. NBA organizations were no longer evaluating him primarily on what he had once done in Indiana. The question became much simpler: can his body handle training camp, the pace of an NBA season and the daily demands of professional basketball?
Three Years of Trying to Prove the Answer Is Yes
For the past three years, Oladipo has been trying to answer yes. During the 2025 Summer League, he took part in a workout in Las Vegas in front of representatives from NBA and European clubs. ESPN reported that he played full-court five-on-five and that those watching were impressed by his physical condition. Still, an NBA contract never came.
That did not stop him. In the fall, he appeared in preseason action for the Guangzhou Loong Lions before accepting an opportunity a former All-Star might not have considered a few years earlier, joining the G League.
The Wisconsin Herd, the Milwaukee Bucks’ affiliate, brought him in during November 2025. Oladipo played 15 games and averaged 13.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.1 steals in just under 30 minutes per game, shooting 38.9 percent from the field and 32.9 percent from three. Those numbers were not enough on their own to make NBA teams overlook his injury history, but the decision to play in the G League showed how seriously he was pursuing another opportunity.
His Pro Day Was an Invitation to Judge Him in Person
This July, he went a step further. With practically the entire NBA in Las Vegas for Summer League, Oladipo scheduled his own Pro Day for July 14. The workout was open to NBA and other professional team executives, scouts, coaches and other league personnel. He no longer wanted his situation judged through old footage, rehabilitation reports or assurances that he felt healthy. He invited the people making those decisions to come and watch him themselves.
Oladipo was visibly emotional after the workout and wrote the next morning about how grateful he felt. There was also concrete interest. Sacramento had representatives at the workout, while ESPN reported that Oladipo again appeared to be in very good physical condition. He later confirmed that the Kings had shown interest and that the feeling was mutual. Sacramento, however, has also considered other veteran guards, which says plenty about where Oladipo currently stands…
He Had to Stop Chasing the Player He Used to Be
In his letter, Oladipo writes openly about spending years after his first injury trying to become the player he had been in Indiana. After tearing his patellar tendon in 2023, he realized he had to stop “chasing the ghost of what could have been” and instead build a new version of himself.
His four-year-old daughter, Naomi, adds another layer to that effort. Oladipo explains that when she looks back on his career one day, he wants her to remember this period: not her father as the No. 2 pick or an All-Star, but as someone who had to start over several times and still refused to give up. That is his personal motivation. The basketball motivation is much simpler: he wants to play again.
All He Wants Is One More Evaluation
NBA teams, of course, do not hand out contracts because a player has a compelling story, and they already know what Oladipo once could do with the ball and how good he was in Indiana. What they are probably evaluating now is how much of that game he can still offer at 34, with a body that has been through so much.
If he gets a contract, he certainly will not walk into anything resembling the role he had at his peak. He will have to fight for every minute on the floor, prove that he can handle the continuity of practices and games, and find a place in a rotation that will ask much less of him than it once did.
That is the position Oladipo has accepted in his letter to NBA general managers. After everything that has happened to him, he simply wants someone to evaluate him one more time for the player he is today…