Victor Oladipo Wants One More NBA Chance. Can He Convince a Team?
Two-time NBA All-Star Victor Oladipo is seeking a return to the league, addressing general managers in an open letter. After a career marred by devastating knee injuries, Oladipo believes his body is finally healthy and he is ready to contribute, drawing inspiration from his daughter.
Victor Oladipo knows what it feels like to be one of the NBA’s best.
He also knows what it feels like to lose all of that almost overnight.
Now, at 34, the Nigerian-American former All-Star is asking NBA teams to give him another chance.
Oladipo made the appeal in an open letter to league general managers published by The Players’ Tribune on September 1. He says his body is finally right, he still has winning basketball in him and, most importantly, he wants the chance to prove it.
That chance has not come yet.
His career changed with one injury
Oladipo entered the NBA as the No. 2 pick in the 2013 draft. By 2018, he had become one of the league's most exciting two-way guards.
With the Indiana Pacers, he won the NBA's Most Improved Player award and made two All-Star teams. He looked like a player who was settling into the kind of career that could last for years.
Then came January 2019.
Oladipo ruptured the quadriceps tendon in his right knee, beginning a stretch of injuries that repeatedly interrupted his career.
He eventually returned, but could not regain the same consistency. He moved through Houston and Miami, and in April 2023, another serious knee injury ended his season with the Heat.
He has not played in the NBA since.
In fact, he has not played more than 42 games in a season since 2017-18.
For a player who once looked firmly established in the league, that is a long way to fall.
He has been trying to get back
Oladipo has not simply waited for a phone call.
He held a private workout in Las Vegas in July, inviting NBA executives, scouts and other league personnel to see him play. It was his chance to show teams what his body could handle after years of rehabilitation.
He also spent part of the 2025-26 season with the Wisconsin Herd in the NBA G League.
Oladipo averaged 13.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists during his time with the Herd.
Those numbers will not automatically earn him an NBA contract. At 34, with his injury history, teams have plenty to consider.
But Oladipo is not asking anyone to ignore that history.
He is asking them to watch what he can do now.
There is more to this than basketball
The most personal part of Oladipo's letter was about his daughter, Naomi, whom he calls Nomi.
He wants her to remember this period of his life as the time her father kept going even when the outcome was uncertain.
That matters because Oladipo's comeback has never really been about pretending the injuries did not happen. He has spoken openly about the physical and emotional toll of losing basketball, a sport that had once given him so much.
Now he wants his daughter to see what comes after that.
Not the All-Star version of Victor Oladipo.
Just her dad, trying again.
Can an NBA team take the chance?
Oladipo's résumé is still impressive.
Across 10 NBA seasons, he has averaged 16.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.6 steals over 504 games. He has played for Orlando, Oklahoma City, Indiana, Houston and Miami.
But NBA teams do not sign players for what they used to be.
That is the part Oladipo cannot control.
He can work out. He can play in the G League. He can tell teams that his body feels different now. The final decision still belongs to front offices deciding if there is enough left to justify giving him a roster spot.
And that is why his letter feels different from a normal free-agent pitch.
He is not promising that he will return to his All-Star level. He is asking for an opportunity to show what he can still contribute.
For now, nobody knows if an NBA team will say yes.
Oladipo seems prepared for that possibility.
But after everything that has happened, he clearly is not ready to close the book himself.