The Miami Heat are in a great place right now as a team. That’s a keyword for this chat though, “great”, so hold on to that.
Currently sitting in first place in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, with a two-game lead on the second-placed Milwaukee Bucks at the moment, the Miami Heat have a ton of their final games at home and are just getting to see what they might eventually look like at full tilt.
While the readdition of Markieff Morris to the lineup is a huge part of that, with Keef having been out of the lineup since the November 8th dustup between himself and Nikola Jokic, he isn’t even the most mercurial part of the whole scenario.
While that may be hard to believe, considering the mysterious nature of Morris’s injury status for so long, there is another guy that just returned to the Miami Heat that had been out longer than he had been.
You know who it is. In case the headline wasn’t a dead giveaway, yes, it’s Victor Oladipo.
Before Victor Oladipo came back to play in a recent game against the Houston Rockets, it had been almost a full calendar year since he was last on a professional basketball court.
This is, in concert, with all the time he’s missed in betwixt other ailments or complications from this one, here and there.
Either way though, Dipo is back now and in fact, he thinks he just might have the opportunity to get all the way back to where he was or where his trajectory might have been headed before all of the cataclysms that have impacted him got underway.
Here is what he had to say recently.
It comes via the reporting of The Athletic’s Joe Vardon (subscription required).
"“I know when I’m right and I’m 100 percent physically what I’m capable of doing, so I don’t have to worry about anything but getting healthy,” Oladipo said. “I still plan on being really, really, really good at this game and I still plan on being one of the greats.”"
Well, alright Mr. Oladipo. That’s quite the amount of confidence that the guy still has in himself.
But why wouldn’t he? He’s an elite athlete who has, not only, overcome the odds to become a professional in the first place, but beat the percentages to even more of a pulp by becoming one of the very best in the game.
If anybody can have this type of belief in themself, it’s someone who has done that. How’s that coming along currently though?
While his modest averages of 6.7 points, 1.7 rebounds, and three assists per game across the three he has played for Miami, thus far, this season are nothing to go crazy over, there are a few things to do exactly that about.
This guy is finally healthy and feeling as well as he has felt in a few years from a basketball-related health perspective. He also finally feels right, apparently.
When you think about all of that and in accordance with the fact that you have seen him be a top 25 guy in the league type across his career, it should lead you to the last thing to be excited about.
You are adding this to a Miami Heat team that has, not only, been the best team in the Eastern Conference for much of the year, but also one of the best in the entire league. They should have more than enough to put them over the top in the coming postseason, all if good fortune and health are with them.
And furthermore, yes, with Miami’s system, world-class conditioning program, and the coach now affectionately known as Top 15 around these parts— Oladipo could certainly still stand to go down as “one of the greats”.
You just hope it comes to fruition and even more so, in a Miami Heat uniform.