Reducing turnovers the key to Victor Oladipo’s improvement
Victor Oladipo spent a lot of time at point guard and his turnovers (and youth) made him suffer. His sophomore year has seen a dramatic improvement though.
Victor Oladipo has been a revelation of late. He finally appears to have found his footing after missing the beginning of the season with that facial fracture. His back-to-back 30-point games have awakened everyone around the league to how good the second overall pick can be.
Oladipo has scored at least 15 points in his last 10 games now and is shooting 49.3 percent from the floor in the last 10 games on 15 field goal attempts per game. Oladipo is a guy who has hit his stride this season after missing so much time with injury at the beginning of the season.
Orlando hoped Oladipo would develop into the team’s main offensive option int he half court and, slowly but surely, he has done that.
The slow start had plenty of people kind of down on Oladipo. After all, his draft class was not the best in the world and Giannis Antetokounmpo is just so much fun.
Last week, ESPN’s David Thorpe ranked Oladipo seventh in his rankings of NBA sophomores. That is behind luminaries like Kelly Olynyk and the resurgent Shabazz Muhammad (this was before his injury). The reason was Oladipo was still getting his feet wet. But also because of his high turnover rate. It was clear early on this season, he was still figuring things out.
"Other than as a shooter, Oladipo has not made a jump at all as a basketball player. Perhaps the biggest problem holding him back is his turnovers. Some come from just being too casual with the ball (like trying to throw a pass over the head of a taller defender), some come from driving below the block (a danger zone for all but a few, usually bigger, scorers), and some come from simply driving into a crowd of defenders. Attention to detail in any of these areas would bring his turnovers down significantly."
Oladipo has made something of a leap. There is no doubt about that. He is shooting 46.1 percent from the floor after shooting 41.9 percent from the floor last year. His 3-point shooting has drastically improved too — 39.6 percent to 32.7 percent last year.
He was the point guard for much of the year last year and went through the growing pains a rookie learning a position would go through. He posted 3.2 turnovers per game and a 19.2 percent turnover rate as a rookie. He posted 5.3 turnovers per 100 possessions and 3.7 turnovers per 36 minutes.
Oladipo was learning everything on the fly as a point guard that rookie year. He undoubtedly needed to improve his turnovers and turnover rate this year as a sophomore.
He did get off to a rough start, but Oladipo has taken the next step by limiting his turnovers. Moving off the ball has certainly helped. But the numbers do not lie again:
TO/G | TO/36 | TO% | Time at PG | |
---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | 3.2 | 3.7 | 19.2 | 59% |
2015 | 2.7 | 2.9 | 15.5 | 46% |
You can easily see Oladipo has made some pretty dramatic strides protecting the ball.
“At the end of the day, if your intention is a positive one, then you can live with some turnovers,” Oladipo said recently. “It’s an imperfect game. As bad as you want to be perfect, you can’t be. At the end of the day, we’ve just got to continue to stay positive. We found our way that we need to play. We can’t defer, no matter what.”
That has not meant Oladipo is not immune though. He has had games with five or more turnovers, but just four of them and none in the new calendar year. He is protecting the ball and becoming a slowly more efficient basketball player.
The Magic are relying even heavily on Oladipo now, particularly with Tobias Harris out. And Oladipo has stepped up to the plate.
If Oladipo keeps this up, his play the last two weeks that is, the Magic will have a very good player (not just merely a good one) in their fold. The decrease in turnovers shows very clearly the improvements he has made and the steps forward he continues to take in his young career.