Victor Oladipo spoke about the struggles he faced after the first major trade of his career.
As an NBA player, your future can often be quite uncertain. Between July and February, a player can be traded to another team at a moment’s notice.
And until this year, we thought that star players were exempt from this threat unless they specifically demanded a trade.
But Luka Doncic‘s spectacular trade to the Los Angeles Lakers earlier this year proved that no star is truly safe from this fate.
Victor Oladipo recently spoke about his shocking trade from the Orlando Magic to the Oklahoma City Thunder, and how it broke his heart.
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Victor Oladipo on emotional Magic trade
Victor Oladipo spoke on The Inner Court about the Luka Doncic trade. He likened it to his own trade from the Orlando Magic to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Oladipo explained that it was an emotional blow for him, one that caused him to cry. And he experienced the same thing again when the Thunder traded him again.
“I’m not gonna sit here and say I was anything on the level of Luka was offensively, but defensively, I was on the same level as he is offensively.”
“I got traded at 24, I got traded my third year in the league, I didn’t know I got traded. I had no idea I was getting traded. And I cried in my driveway. I just bought a house in Orlando, too.”
“I was the number two pick, like, the number two pick don’t get traded. You’re supposed to be at your same organization for a while, and then I got traded. And then, boom, I go to OKC. I played there for a year. Boom, I get traded again.”
No one is safe from being traded
Oladipo then explained how he learned that no matter how good a player he was, he was expendable. And that was a bitter pill to swallow. He added that Doncic’s trade has now made this the norm.
“I kind of knew, but I didn’t necessarily want to believe it. I just bought a crib, and I felt like I was improving every year over there. It was tough for me to deal with because it was embarrassing for me.”
“It wasn’t like, now, how you could get everybody traded at this point. If Luka is getting traded, the whole narrative is that nobody is safe. Everyone will get traded now, it’s kind of a normality.”
“But back then it just felt like, OK, so you don’t want me, so you ain’t want me, you ain’t think I was good enough, you thought you thought there was something better.”
The NBA, for all the opportunities it provides young men, can be a very difficult place for them. Perhaps this is the cost of being a superstar in the sport of basketball.