I’ve said my entire adult life that the best place in the world to be from is in the hood. Why? Because if you can survive there you can survive ANYWHERE! I’ll tell a boy in a heartbeat, “Don’t try to run game on me because I can spot a hustle gettin’ out of a car down the street at midnight with a hoodie, shades and a mask on playa!”
Victor Oladipo had everybody in Indianapolis fooled but me. After locker room interviews and post game press conferences I’ve always said to myself that that dude is full of crap and that’s the edited version. I never said it publicly but I saw the hustle from day one. It was something about him that was never genuine.
Now it’s all falling out of the back seat of the car. According to the big homie, J. Michael, over at the Indy Star ole boy asked Toronto, New York and Miami if he could “come play with y’all” in front of his Pacers teammates.
Now let’s not get it twisted, I’m not in any way upset that Oladipo doesn’t want to stay in Indianapolis. It’s professional sports playa. It’s a business! He’s entering the final year of an $85 million deal and if he wants to bounce and not extend his stay in Indy that’s his business. The fans and reporters don’t own these players. I get more upset with folks that think that they do own them.
It is what it is. Indianapolis isn’t a place where a young black man with millions of dollars and other options wants to play out his career. It’s a stop off to bigger and better things and that may or may not be a better team. If you were a black man in America that’s 27 or 28 years old with $80 million would you rather live in Miami, New York, LA, Boston, Atlanta or Indy? That’s a real question? If you say Indy you’re delusional.
The problem I have with Vic is the way he’s handling the situation. Big Momma always said, “There’s a way to do everything.” If he doesn’t want to stay in Indy just have his agent look for trade options and refuse to sign or engage in extension talks. The Pacers would have to either allow him to walk when his contract expires or trade him so that they don’t get stuck with nothing for him. Those are the options.
To totally disrespect not only the organization and his teammates is ridiculous. That’s the BS that I spotted when he got out of the car when he arrived after the Paul George trade. Most people couldn’t see it because they didn’t grow up in an environment like the one I grew up in. You’ve got to know it to see it. He hustled all of the naive fans that couldn’t see it.
And please don’t throw him into the same category as Paul George. PG got rail roaded around here. He told the Pacers front office a year and a half before his contract was to expire that he wasn’t going to sign the extension. That was their opportunity to trade him then. They didn’t because they were hoping that he would make the first-team All-NBA team and they could offer him the MAX deal. He didn’t, so they couldn’t.
Reporters around here kept pressing him as to what he was going to do. They kept on asking him was he staying or going? He kept saying the politically correct thing of “yes I’m a Pacer and want to win a championship here” because he was still under contract and it was the proper thing to do.
It’s no different than what everyday Americans do in this country while interviewing for another job while they’ve got a job. If someone asks them if they’re about to leave the company they vehemently deny that they’re thinking of leaving until they get the other offer in writing. So stop the PG bashing.
Finally duns cornered him in a dugout at a celebrity baseball game and he couldn’t take the foolishness any longer and said he wasn’t staying. I’ve got way more respect for Paul than I do Vic. What Vic did was a sucker move because he’s asking other teams can he run with them in front of his own teammates. It takes a certain type of cat to do that.
And yes, I know that he called the Pacers new head coach, Nate Bjorkgren, and told him that he was all in and excited to work with him but that’s the smoke screen. You’ve got no choice but to move now him because if you keep him and he walks at the end of the season. You get nothing for him. Stop me when I start lyin’!