{"id":177340,"date":"2025-07-17T17:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/177340\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T17:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:36:08","slug":"former-pacers-iu-player-seeks-return-to-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/177340\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Pacers, IU player seeks return to NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/pacers\/2024\/10\/29\/victor-oladipo-says-pacers-were-aware-his-surgery-failed-before-trade\/75916831007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Victor Oladipo<\/a> last played in the NBA on April 22, 2023. Myriad injuries have interrupted his career, but he believes he&#8217;s ready to return.<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/sports\/hoosiers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Indiana men&#8217;s basketball<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/sports\/pacers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Indiana Pacers<\/a> star is working out for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">NBA<\/a> teams in hopes of finding a spot on a roster.<\/p>\n<p>His post this week on social media: &#8220;I feel so great right now!! Better than I felt in the last 7 years mind, body and soul. I know I am a fighter! I know I am a warrior! I have seen every lens this game and this league has to offer. I know I can help any team in any role win in any way! I also know the people want to see me succeed in this game and play at the highest level again. My injuries are behind me and it will never happen again! I am at peace with that and my past. I\u2019m ready to build a present now and future of a life time. I want to share my story and my journey and give it back to the people because without them there would be no VeO. I want to show the world that even in the darkest of places and during the darkest times the light in you can lead to the brightest destinations. #Olahim #HimOlaya #Veo \ud83e\udd39\ud83c\udfff\u200d\u2642\ufe0f\ud83e\udd77\ud83c\udfff&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\">Two major pieces missing: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/pacers\/2025\/07\/16\/who-are-indiana-pacers-most-important-players-tyrese-haliburton-injury-myles-turner-leaving-2025-26\/84327000007\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ranking Pacers&#8217; most important players for 2025-26<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I feel so great right now!! Better than I felt in the last 7 years mind, body and soul. I know I am a fighter! I know I am a warrior! I have seen every lens this game and this league has to offer. I know I can help any team in any role win in any way! I also know the people want\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Victor Oladipo (@VicOladipo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VicOladipo\/status\/1944555154306662472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 14, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He has also posted highlights of workouts.<\/p>\n<p>Oladipo was a two-time All-Star for the Pacers, though he later missed a full year (divided over parts of two seasons) with a quad injury. After leaving the Pacers in 2021, he played 74 games over 2 1\/2 seasons. He has not played the past two seasons.<\/p>\n<p>He played at IU from 2010-13, averaging 10.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. Oladipo was a first-team All-Big Ten performer, conference Defensive Player of the Year and consensus All-American in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>He was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft by the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/orlando-magic\/19\/\" data-autotag=\"0beff9dc-ada3-4e62-b859-030ef8c2c69f\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Orlando Magic<\/a>. He played for Orland and Oklahoma City before being traded to the Pacers.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Oladipo last played in the NBA on April 22, 2023. Myriad injuries have interrupted his career, but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[12038,59,72,7,657,12040,355,617,319,325,777,60,74,12509,12039,113,6523,126,3866,12512,12514,71,86,48,70,85,6,231,2504,67,47,76,61,134,114,132,118,66,83,2499,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-177340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-12038","9":"tag-affiliate","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-big","13":"tag-big-10-hub","14":"tag-celebrities","15":"tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","16":"tag-college","17":"tag-college-sports","18":"tag-conference","19":"tag-content","20":"tag-entertainment","21":"tag-hoosiers","22":"tag-hub","23":"tag-indiana","24":"tag-indiana-hoosiers","25":"tag-indiana-pacers","26":"tag-indianapacers","27":"tag-iu","28":"tag-iu-sports-content-sharing","29":"tag-local","30":"tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","31":"tag-magic","32":"tag-national","33":"tag-national-sports","34":"tag-nba","35":"tag-ncaa","36":"tag-ncaa-big-ten-conference","37":"tag-news","38":"tag-orlando","39":"tag-orlando-magic","40":"tag-overall","41":"tag-overall-positive","42":"tag-pacers","43":"tag-positive","44":"tag-sharing","45":"tag-sports","46":"tag-sports-news","47":"tag-ten","48":"tag-u0026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}