Pacers star Victor Oladipo posted a message on social media thanking his fans, teammates and players around the league for supporting him after suffering a season-ending injury last week. Oladipo, 26, ruptured the quad tendon in his right knee and is scheduled for season-ending surgery.
“The amount of support, love and prayers that I have received over the past few days have been breathtaking and has truly inspired me to come back even better than before,” he wrote on Instagram. “Thank you to everyone including all my teammates, pacer fans and staff. Thank you to all the NBA fans around the world and all my brothers around the league who texted, called, tweeted and posted me I am truly thankful. It’s going to be tough but tough times don’t last, tough people do.”
Oladipo was in the midst of another solid season with Indiana before getting injured, holding per-game averages of 18.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.2 assists. His injury was a crushing blow to a Pacers team focused on making a deep postseason run in the spring.
“I will be back better than ever and if you question that well, thank you,” Oladipo wrote. “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. I am #UnBreakable.”
The Pacers currently hold the third best record in the East at 32-16, with the team still set on competing for the postseason behind the likes of Myles Turner, Tyreke Evans, Thaddeus Young and others.
There’s more from the Central Division today:
- Pacers guard Edmond Sumner could receive more minutes going forward with the loss of Oladipo, J. Michael writes for the Indy Star. “There’ll be some nights that we may look to go to him off the bench,” said coach Nate McMillan. “There’s some nights where we can look at going with Ed off the bench instead of Aaron because it does give us more length.” Indiana traded for Sumner, 23, on draft night in 2017.
- Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson will miss approximately two weeks of action with left foot soreness, the team announced. The soreness is believed to be from a foot sprain suffered on December 10, an injury that forced him to miss 10 straight games.
- Eric Bledsoe is finally where he wants to be in his career with Milwaukee, Malika Andrews of ESPN writes. The Bucks traded for Bledsoe in November of 2017, giving him the chance to start and help lead a team in the Eastern Conference. “It’s slow,” Bledsoe said of Milwaukee. “There ain’t much to do. It feels just like home. I like it because I don’t want life to pass me by. In big cities, things go by too fast.”
Pacers need to give Holiday some run. See what they have. Their cap space means they can overpay for a young PG RFA. Or stand pat with Holiday and resign Joseph/Collison on a 1 yr deal. I imagine they’ll end up paying 15ish for Bojan if they go that route?
Wouldn’t it be kind of ironic if Bledsoe were traded after that quote.
Very. Considering they cleared all that cap room to try and sign him, Middleton and/or Brogdon this summer.
Nevermimd that they currently have the best record in the league.
*Unless they pull another “we don’t feel we can resign him so we’re going to trade for another expiring contract who we think we can” like the ray Allen for Gary Payton swap years ago.
Milwaukee is a fun town, I don’t know what Bledsoe is talking about.
Milwaukee is a fun town to guys when your basis of comparison is that of your average person. These guys are in and out of 27 of the largest cities in the country every year. Milwaukee is pretty laid back in that regard.
word on the street’s melo was in indy having dinner with pacer mngt.. i don’t hate it