Victor Oladipo has yet to suit up in the 2022-23 NBA regular season for the Miami Heat due to a knee injury.
According to NBA insider Brian Windhorst, Oladipo may not be close to getting back on the court anytime soon.
“I don’t think he’s anywhere close, sad to say,” Windhorst said of Oladipo. “They haven’t put a timetable on it, but I was kind of led to believe that it ain’t happening in the near future.”
It’s obviously hard to hear for fans who have been rooting for Oladipo. While he has been an All-Star at times in his career, the chances that he ever returns to that level of success surely diminish with each lower-body injury he deals with.
The current knee injury, though seemingly not as serious as some of the previous injuries he has dealt with in the past, is not a good sign for the kind of success he hopes to enjoy this season.
Aside from not having Oladipo, the Heat are still struggling to find a way to overcome the loss of P.J. Tucker, who left the team in free agency over the summer. All in all, the Heat have looked like a surprisingly weak team so far this season. They’re currently the No. 12 seed in the Eastern Conference with a record of 3-5.
With that in mind, a glimmer of hope did come on Tuesday night when the Heat managed to defeat the defending champion Golden State Warriors by a score of 116-109.
Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo led the way, as Butler recorded 23 points, eight assists and six rebounds while Adebayo notched 19 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Duncan Robinson and Max Strus also greatly contributed to the win with 17 points and 24 points, respectively.
In the next two games, the Heat have some favorable matchups and will try to get to .500. They’ll face the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday and then travel to take on the Indiana Pacers on Friday.
Still, going 2-0 in those games is not going to solve everything for the Heat. If their goal is truly to win the 2023 NBA Finals, as Butler recently stated, it seems likely that the team’s front office will have to add some talent to the team sooner or later.
How that impacts Oladipo’s spot on the roster remains to be seen.
