Victor Oladipo leads USA in scoring in Rising Stars loss

Victor Oladipo scored a team-high 22 points, but his team could not overcome the length of Rudy Gobert and World Team in the Rising Stars Challenge.

The BBVA Compass Rising Stars game is supposed to be fun. So nobody is going to fault anyone for bad statistics or poor shot selection or no defense or anything like that.

So if Victor Oladipo wanted to go one on one with Andrew Wiggins and pull up for a jumper? No problem.

That was the kind of game Oladipo decided to have. He was going to go for the MVP as the best sophomore in the league and he was going to force his way to do it. He did not do that as the World Team won 121-116 at the BBVA Compass Rising Stars at Barclays Center on Friday.

Let the record show Oladipo scored a team-high 22 points on 8-for-21 shooting and 3-for-4 shooting from the beyond the arc. He added four assists and four steals to his tally. But really he was looking to create for himself mostly from the half court. He did not get into the open court too often and was not scoring many of Team USA’s 30 fast break points.

Oladipo had 16 of his points in the first half, going on an impressive 9-0 run with back-to-back 3-pointers over Andrew Wiggins and an and-1 finish. His second half was spent trying to force drives through the trees of Rudy Gobert and Giannis Antetokounmpo and so he forced a lot of shots and missed a lot of shots.

That was the case for most of Team USA in this one. They were going one on one a lot and ended up with 22 assists on 49 field goal makes and shot 49.5 percent from the floor. That is pretty uncharacteristic for this game where defense just does not happen.

That was evident as Oladipo, typically an involved defender, was uninterested in playing help side unless he could dig down and get a steal and Elfrid Payton, another solid on-ball defender, was not fighting through screens and passing players off without doing much of anything.

Not complaining. That is the type of game this is.

Oladipo did not have the shooting or length to consistently finish in the half court, often having the longer Wiggins on him and, at the end of the game, Antetokounmpo. When you gun for the MVP, sometimes you fall just a bit short.

It looked like Oladipo was having a fun time though and he did not get hurt. That is what matters most.

Payton got the start with Oladipo but only took one shot — a floater that banked in for his only points. Payton kept the offense moving, but was not looking to break anyone down and seemed happy to be in the background. That is not unusual from a rookie that is not a scorer or one of the main guys on the floor for his team.

Again, most importantly, he did not get hurt.

Andrew Wiggins ended up winning the MVP but it was Rudy Gobert who really seemed to have the coming out party. He was a monster around both rims, blocking shots and grabbing rebounds. It made the U.S. offense very hard to watch.

It was not quite the dominant, up-and-down, dunking performance that the Rising Stars Game ultimately devolves into. There were some competitive moments. And the World’s turnovers seemed able to keep the U.S. in the game and give them a chance. Oladipo was just not putting the team on his back and getting them to the finish line.

Not much you can do there then. He did his best in the exhibition to find his shot and make the most of his opportunities. He could not deliver in the end.

Maybe he was saving himself for Saturday’s big appearance in the dunk contest.

Next: Elfrid Payton soaks in first All-Star experience