Victor Oladipo wants to be loved in Indy while playing in Miami. Sorry, Victor, life doesn’t work that way.
Victor Oladipo wants your attention.
Indiana Pacers fans moved on from their sadness over the devolution of Victor Oladipo long ago. The marriage between Oladipo and Pacers fans was dissolved due to irreconcilable differences when the Pacers traded him to the Houston Rockets on January 13, 2021. The relationship broke long before that, but fans always hoped the version of Oladipo they loved would one day return. He didn’t; he hasn’t; and he won’t.
Like a husband who still harbors a bitter affection for the lover who jilted him, Oladipo took to Twitter yesterday to try to stir some passion:
Trust me I’m the same VO just a little wiser. Eventually the realization has to surface, that the players can’t always be the problem! Think about it. PG,VO,DS & more🤔 I love y’all pacer fans and miss y’all more. Don’t believe everything you read all that s**** is delusional.🐺 https://t.co/juF2SlYRjn
— Victor Oladipo (@VicOladipo) August 10, 2022
The tweet failed to arouse the interest or curiosity of Pacers fans that once embraced Oladipo when he proclaimed, “This is my city!” after a game-winning bucket. And it was for a time. Then Oladipo decided to be “feathery”, tore his quad tendon, and became a contestant on Masked Singer.
There were a measley 205 replies to Oladipo’s tweet as of this morning, and most echo one of two sentiments – fans have moved on and so should Oladipo; and a lack of humility is not attractive. Both are true.
Oladipo’s clumsy branding corrupted his natural charisma, and fans recoiled. Pacers fans have been down this road before with Paul George, whose evolution from humility to excellence to branding to injury followed by rehab, lying, and finally too big for Indy wore them raw.
Indiana fans have seen disingenuity before. They recognize it quickly and surely. They also know real human beings when they see them. That is why they continue to love Lance Stephenson despite his nutty decision to say yes to less when Michael Jordan offered far less money than the Pacers to make him a Charlotte Hornet. Indiana can deal with nutty, but not self-immersed marketing.
Ironically, the Pacers traded George for Oladipo believing they were shipping a duplicitous problem to Oklahoma City for a decent solution. Instead, they simply replaced one self-immersed brand with another. George still yammers falsely about the Pacers being responsible for pushing him out of town over his objections, and now Oladipo is following the same playbook. Trying to rewrite history only works with foolish consumers, and Indy fans are smarter than to buy the revision Victor is selling.
Both George and Oladipo continue to take Pacers fans for saps who should worship the empty vessel of PG-13 or feathery Vic rather than bond with a real human being who happens to play basketball for a living.
It’s a shame because it didn’t have to be this way. Victor was both productive and a winner as a basketball player at Indiana University. Fans of the program remain fans of Victor because as a Hoosier he was charming and real – and let’s not forget that IU was ranked #1 for a significant part of the 2012-2013 season, his last in Bloomington.
Maybe if the torn quad tendon didn’t happen, it might have been different. Maybe the real Victor would still call Indianapolis his city. Instead, Victor the feathery songbird and brand merchant aligns himself with George as victims of a supposedly incompetent and duplicitous front office.
Sorry, Victor. Indiana stopped buying what your and PG-13 are selling a long time ago.
Well said. I agree with you 100%
It’s just too bad, but I’m sure every team has some disappointments just like us. Let’s just move on from it and keep growing better. Our fans will love our players if they just try hard.