By John Denton
Nov. 20, 2015
ORLANDO – Tip time for the Orlando Magic’s game on Saturday against the Sacramento Kings is just after 5 p.m. ET to accommodate an international broadcast to 21 other countries around the globe.
The early start time is just fine with Magic guard Victor Oladipo, who can’t wait to get back onto the Amway Center parquet floor and erase the ugliness from Wednesday in his first game back since suffering a concussion. For Oladipo, the start of Saturday’s game can’t get here soon enough.
“At the end of the day, I just want to play,” Oladipo said following Friday’s practice. “Any time I get a chance to play, I want to play. I was out for awhile and last game was kind of weird being out there and not having a rhythm. But it is what it is, I got my feet wet, we won the game and now I’m looking forward to the next one.”
Exactly a week after suffering the first concussion of his life, Oladipo went out on Wednesday and missed all six of his field goal attempts and was off on three of four free throw tries. In 20 minutes of game action, he managed just one point before being mercifully lifted from the lineup to start the second half.
Oladipo, who is averaging 13.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.5 steals a game, hopes to be significantly more comfortable on Saturday against the Kings (4-9 overall and 0-4 on the road) following two days of practice. For the Magic (6-6), the game offers an opportunity to be better than .500 this late into the season for the first time since the 2011-12 season.
“I’ve never been .500 since I’ve been here, so that would be one accomplishment,” Oladipo said of the potential that Saturday holds for the Magic. “I think we’re going into games now feeling that we can win. I think, before, we were just kind of going in just playing and trying to figure it out. Now, I think we actually go into games feeling like we can win them. That’s a big step for us.”
Oladipo suffered the concussion on Nov. 11 when his face and head accidentally rammed into the shoulder of teammate Dewayne Dedmon as he chased a loose ball. After being diagnosed with a concussion, Oladipo experienced headaches and a sensitivity to light in the first couple of days.
But the standout guard recovered quickly from the concussion symptoms and he was back around his teammates five days following his collision. Oladipo passed several tests over the next three days and was ultimately cleared by a NBA-appointed neurologist before being allowed to suit up Wednesday night.
Magic coach Scott Skiles feels that Oladipo’s rustiness from not practicing had as much to do with his struggles on Wednesday as anything.
“(In practice the past two days) he looked like Victor again. We’ve been doing a lot of contact with pads and he’s taken all of that, so I’m hopeful (the struggles) are behind him,” Skiles said of Oladipo’s performance in practice Thursday and Friday. “Even if he hadn’t had a concussion and it was a (sprained) ankle or something, when you get into the rhythm of the season and then have a few days where you’re not doing something and – boom! – you’re back out there with the speed of the game, that’s not an easy thing to adjust to.”
INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
Having already played a preseason game in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and scheduled to play in London on Jan. 14, the Magic will get some more international exposure on Saturday afternoon.
The Magic were selected to be a part of the NBA’s global TV initiative to provide fans overseas live NBA basketball in prime time. This is the second year of the NBA’s initiative. In all, the league will televise 12 Saturday games and 23 Sunday games in overseas’ prime time slots.
Saturday’s game between the Magic and Kings will be seen live in 21 countries and territories: Azerbaijan, Belgium, Belarus, Central Asia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Pan-Adriatic, Pan-Africa, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia and the United Kingdom.
Magic guard Evan Fournier, who is in the midst of a career year while averaging 19.4 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.3 steals a game, is especially happy that the game will be televised back in his native France. Much of his family stays up until the early-morning hours in France and watches Magic games – as they did on Wednesday when Fournier drilled a game-winning 3-pointer in overtime – but now they won’t have to be so sleep-deprived with the earlier start time to accommodate fans in Europe.
“That (international broadcast) is cool because it’s hard to watch a NBA game back home because it’s on late, and games usually aren’t on a national channel and you have to pay for it,” Fournier said. “So I’m really glad that it’s an early game and people will be able to watch it back home.”
Overall, NBA content is seen in 215 countries and territories around the world and in 49 languages. The NBA has offices in 12 markets worldwide, including recent openings in Johannesburg, Mumbai and Rio. NBA rosters at the start of the 2015-16 season featured 100 international players from 37 countries and territories, marking the second consecutive year with at least 100 players.
The Magic have four players hailing from outside of U.S. borders: Nikola Vucevic (Montenegro), Mario Hezonja (Croatia), Andrew Nicholson (Canada) and Fournier (France).
CARING ABOUT WINNING
To realize how odd Wednesday’s subpar game was for Oladipo, you must take into account how solid he’s been in a variety of areas in his first two-plus NBA seasons.
Prior to this season, Oladipo had scored in double figures in 141 of his 162 NBA games. But his last two games – the Nov. 11 game where he played just six minutes because of the concussion and scored three points and Wednesday’s where he was in and out of the game throughout – have been statistical oddities.
Wednesday’s zero-of-six shooting proved to be the first time in 162 NBA games that Oladipo failed to make a field goal. Also, the scoring production (one point) was the lowest of his two-plus-year pro career. The bad shooting night dropped Oladipo to 36.6 percent for the season from the floor and 26.7 percent from the 3-poiint arc.
The only statistic that Oladipo cared about was 104-101 – the score that Orlando by in overtime. He knows that after two days of practice that he will be much more comfortable in Saturday’s game with the early tip time.
“I can’t control whether the ball goes in or not, but I can have full control over my effort,” said Oladipo, who has been Orlando’s best on-ball defender all season. “All I was worried about was getting the win. I could care less if I went 0 for 6 or 0 for 20 because I will still come out the next game and play with complete confidence. I really don’t care about anything other than winning.”
