by Kent Sterling
Let’s just pray Victor Oladipo gets drafted before Detroit picks fifth. No one deserves to spend his early 20s in that purgatory.
Victor Oladipo will leave Indiana University with some unfinished business. He’s forfeiting 25% of his college experience to roll with the pros in the NBA.
Good for Oladipo because he is going to be a top ten pick, and maybe a top five pick. Because Oladipo isn’t a moron who who buy 12 Bentley’s, money will stack up from that first contract that he will never run through. Bad for Oladipo because you need to embrace a worry free lifestyle for every second you can while you have it. That life ended with his announcement.
From today forward:
- Every chick he meets can’t be trusted because she could be after his money.
- Every friend outside of basketball might be after his money.
- Every teammate will have one eye on game results, and another on how his stats will affect his next contract.
- Every lunch of dinner he enjoys with others, he will be expected to pay for.
- Every time he comes back to Assembly Hall, he’ll wonder about what might have been.
There is a lot of good too:
- No classes to interrupt workouts.
- Ability to take care of family in a meaningful way.
- Use cash to start a foundation that helps those who can’t help themselves.
- Opportunity to compete with and against the best in the world.
- When someone buys an Oladipo jersey, Victor will get paid.
Victor is one of my favorite college athletes. He’s a great interview, and deserves whatever rewards in which he decides to indulge. He’s been focused on being the best player he could be since getting to Bloomington just under three years ago.
His life is going to change, and not for the better in every way. That’s the reality of the situation.
People spend four years (or six in my case) trying to beat a path out of town. A year or two after leaving, we figure out that life was pretty damn sweet.
Oladipo is going to figure that out, but no one can blame a guy who has gone from being the #144 ranked senior in the class of 2010 to being one of the best five amateurs in the world.
Good luck to Victor Oladipo, a student-athlete who embodies all that being a good Hoosier should mean.