Victor Oladipo was once the face of the Indiana Pacers, an electric, two-way All-Star who had them believe in a new era after the Paul George trade. But his decision to turn down a major contract extension from the Pacers has long been debated and misunderstood. Now, Oladipo himself is setting the record straight.
On the “Above The Rim with DH12” podcast, Oladipo addressed the rumored $113 million offer he allegedly rejected from Indiana, making it clear that figure was never real.
“Nah. Everybody always asks that; that wasn’t the real number at all. And to be honest with you, just like we sit here and say, right, we talk about my story, and you know, it’s never really been a money thing for me; it’s about legacy.”
“So for me, I always considered myself as the guy who’s stood at the All-Star. So at that moment, you know, I had just got off injury, not knowing that the doctor who did my injury did it wrong.”
“So I’m just naturally going through life, and during that time, I’m like, Okay, I got my first contract for my family, my family’s already good. This is about my legacy.”
“Okay, I need to show them that I’m constantly improving, I’m getting better, I’m going to get to that level that I once was at, and I believed that I could do that during that year.”
“So they had come to me in the beginning of the year, and they offered me like 3 years something of a little bit under of what I was already making.”
“So I was like, I mean, I could just play out the year and then, I could just see if I could make more. And at that time, I was making 84, so it was 80ier side of things, under 80. So if I was like, if it was 113, I wouldn’t even thought twice.”
At the time, Oladipo was trying to return to All-Star form after suffering a devastating quad tendon rupture in January 2019, a brutal injury that sidelined him for over a year and altered the course of his career.
What made it worse, he now claims, is that the surgery wasn’t even done correctly the first time. Despite that, he still believed he could fight his way back to the top.
Oladipo believed that with a full year under his belt, he could prove he still belonged in the league’s upper echelon, the All-Star, All-NBA level that he had reached in 2018, when he averaged 23.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.4 steals while winning Most Improved Player and earning All-Defensive First Team honors.
In his mind, a lowball extension was settling. And that wasn’t how he wanted to write his story.
Oladipo’s insistence wasn’t about pride alone, it was mental. He spoke about how injury recovery isn’t just physical; it’s neurological, even psychological. Accepting a low-tier deal might have cemented a limited version of himself in his own head, and he refused to let that happen.
The Pacers ultimately traded Oladipo to the Houston Rockets in 2021. There, he declined another sizeable offer, a two-year, $45.2 million extension. He was later traded to the Miami Heat, where he signed a two-year, $18 million contract in 2022 before suffering another serious injury in 2023.
Now 33, and without having played in over two years, Oladipo’s NBA future is uncertain.
But one thing is clear: he didn’t walk away from $113 million. He walked toward the belief that he could still be great. Whether that gamble pays off remains to be seen, but his conviction was never in doubt.
