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By John DentonNov. 8, 2014
ORLANDO – Victor Oladipo made quite an impression on the Orlando Magic during his rookie season with his fearless attacking of the rim and his willingness to absorb heavy amounts of contact and keep on going.
On Saturday, when Oladipo went through a series of drills while wearing a mask to protect the facial fracture below his right eye, the standout guard promised that nothing would change in the way that he throws his body around on the basketball court.
``I think when you get worried, that’s when an incident or something happens. So I’m just going to go out there and play and I’m going to be like I don’t have anything on (protecting his face),’’ said Oladipo, who has no firm timetable on his return because of the nature of his injury. ``I’ll soon be back to being like my normal self.’’
The Magic certainly can’t wait for Oladipo to be back to being the dynamic guard who changed games with his hustle and his grit and often willed Orlando to victories with his contagious energy. The runner-up in last season’s Rookie of the Year voting has yet to play this season after sprained his right knee on the fourth day of training camp and then fracturing a bone in his face when he took an accidental elbow to a spot near his right eye.
Oladipo, who played 80 games as a rookie, has missed all eight preseason games and all six regular-season games so far for the Magic (2-4). With the swelling down in his face, he’s been cleared to fly again and he will travel with Orlando on its three-game trip against the Nets (Sunday afternoon), Raptors (Tuesday night) and Knicks (Wednesday afternoon). Oladipo will continue to go through drills and hopes to soon be incorporated into a full-contact practice that will get him ready to return to game action.
Asked directly when he would play in a game, Oladipo replied: ``I don’t know.’’ Asked when he wanted to play, Oladipo cracked: ``Shoot, you don’t want to ask me that because I’d play tonight if we had a game.’’
Oladipo underwent a procedure on Oct. 25 where a specialist went through his right eye slit and the roof of his mouth. A metal plate and several screws were installed to secure the fracture.
During one drill on Saturday, Oladipo was working on defending the pick and roll and his head nearly collided with that of fellow Magic guard Elfrid Payton. Oladipo pulled back to avoid the contact and he said that he’s yet to receive a blow across the mask to see how much pain it would cause.
``It hasn’t happened yet, but I think my face is stronger than it was before it got hurt any way,’’ he said. ``They made (the eye holes) pretty big so that I could see. I think the biggest adjustment is getting used to it, having something on your face while you are playing.’’
One silver lining of the face injury is that it gave Oladipo more time to rest the sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee. When he first returned to practice two weeks ago, he was being forced to wear a brace on his knee. He has since shed the brace and said his knee feels 100 percent.
``It gave me more time to heal. It feels better,’’ said Oladipo, who averaged 13.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.1 assists a game last season for the Magic. ``It’s going to be fun getting back. It’s all a process and it will be fun to come back and play with these guys.’’
Orlando started the season with four consecutive losses, but has rebounded to win the past two games in dramatic fashion. Tobias Harris hit a buzzer-beating game-winner in Philadelphia on Wednesday night and rookies Aaron Gordon and Payton led the Magic to an overtime defeat of Minnesota on Friday.
Sitting out of those games has been torturous for Oladipo, who has modeled a variety of suits while sitting on the bench with his teammates. He believes this is the longest that he’s been away from basketball since his freshman year of high school when he cracked a bone in his foot and couldn’t play all summer.
``Just imagine something you hold dearly away from you temporarily and telling you that you have to sit and watch,’’ he said. ``You can’t do what you have been doing your whole life and something that you love to do. Not being able to do that and having to sit and watch for five weeks, that’s pretty tough.
``But it could be way worse,’’ Oladipo continued. ``I could have done really bad stuff to my face and my knee. It’s all temporary things, so I’m lucky.’’