Competition fuels fire for young Victor Oladipo and veteran Dwyane Wade
By Carson Ingle
They may be on opposite benches, but common experience unites the Orlando Magic’s Victor Oladipo and Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade.
Basketball is often about the game within the game. That familiar axiom is never truer than when the Orlando Magic have squared off with the Miami Heat in recent years due to a deep connection in each team’s backcourt.
Rising star Victor Oladipo and All-Star Dwyane Wade have known each other since the former was in high school. A bond formed from a chance meeting grew stronger when Oladipo went to play for Wade’s college coach, Tom Crean, at Indiana.
Since, the pair has had training sessions together and Wade has served as a mentor for his fellow two-guard that plays just four hours north on Florida’s Turnpike. Despite the ever-growing familiarity, it is still hard for Oladipo to process that both players share the same court.
“It’s crazy every time,” said Oladipo. “I’m still trying to beat him and I know he’s trying to beat me too. That’s the beauty of being competitors. I’m looking forward to tonight’s game.”
An advisory relationship with young players is something the 33-year-old Wade has begun to encounter. Each season, newcomers join the NBA hoping to take his throne as a great of the game while still having reverence for the three banners he helped place in the American Airlines Arena.
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Despite all the accomplishments, the thought of his peers and adversaries looking up to him still strikes Wade as strange, but he also knows it is part of an unyielding cyclical process that every great athlete ultimately encounters.
“It brings a different kind of focus,” said Wade of facing the league’s young guns. “I enjoy it. I enjoy the battles because for one I’m still in this thing. Still trying to prove, even in a different time one of the best two guards. But I also know, for the future, I’m helping this guy become a very good player. I do look forward to the matchups. It brings you a different focus when you know you are going against one of the future two guards in this league that is pretty good.”
If anything, the rejuvenation Wade experiences each night out against a young challenger like Oladipo makes him more grateful for what he has at this point in his career. It takes him back to pondering his NBA future in a Marquette dorm room, similarly to thoughts Oladipo most likely had while hooping it up for the Hoosiers.
That commonality between Wade, Oladipo and all players who once had the audacity to dream big binds them together.
“I’ve been in their position before,” said Wade. “It was crazy when I faced against, Kobe, or T-Mac, and all these guys, Paul Pierce. I was in college the year before wearing their jerseys. It also helps you too because it brings the best out of you if you’re a competitor. It’s crazy for me because I met Vic at a young age and to see him blossom the way he has, to see the player he has become.”
While comparisons surrounding the two players started because of Crean, they grew due to a similar style and the relationship people started to pick up on. As unfair as those appraisals have been to a player searching for his NBA footing, Oladipo has embraced them.
He also hopes to mimic Wade in one more way: The way of winning.
This is a goal that Wade believes is achievable with the pieces Orlando has around their second-year leader.
“They have a lot of young guys that can play basketball. I think we saw it when we were in Miami the last time. They are one of those no quit teams. They’re going to fight. Some nights it’s not going to go there way, but some nights it is. They’ve shown that this year. The future is bright for the talent they have.”