There is a town in Wisconsin, with a population of just over 66,000, that is now the center of one of the most tragic and inspiring comeback stories in modern NBA history. Oshkosh is home to the Wisconsin Herd, the NBA G League affiliate of the Milwaukee Bucks. It’s a place for dreamers, for the undrafted, for the young and unproven, all scratching and clawing for a single shot at the big league. And now, it is home to Kehinde Babatunde Victor Oladipo.

This is not a name that belongs in the G League. This is a name that belongs in lights. This is a two-time NBA All-Star, a former All-NBA Third Team member, a one-time Most Improved Player, and an All-Defensive First Team guard. This is a man who, at his peak, was on a max contract, the undisputed king of Indiana, a franchise player who electrified an entire state. This is a man who has earned over $100 million in his career.

He is 32 years old, an age when many guards are signing their final lucrative contracts. Instead, Oladipo just signed with the Herd.

To understand the gravity of this move—the sheer, stubborn, unbreakable will it represents—you cannot simply look at the transaction. This isn’t a demotion; it’s a declaration. It is the latest, and perhaps final, chapter in a painful saga of a man who had his superstardom stolen. Not by a decline in skill, not by a lack of effort, but by his own body, which betrayed him in the most catastrophic ways imaginable, not once, not twice, but three separate times.

This is the story of Victor Oladipo’s battle, not against an opponent, but against fate itself. And as he steps onto a G League court, he is sending a clear message: the fight is not over.

To grasp the tragedy, you must first remember the brilliance.

Victor Oladipo was never a guaranteed superstar. He was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, a draft class now remembered as one of the weakest in history. Selected by the Orlando Magic, he was a ball of raw, kinetic energy. He was ridiculously athletic, a defensive menace, but an offensive question mark. His jump shot was unreliable, his handle was loose. He was a good player, averaging respectable numbers, but in three years with the Magic, he never showed the franchise-altering potential his draft slot suggested.

In 2016, he was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he became the running mate for Russell Westbrook during his historic MVP season. Oladipo’s role was clear: defend the other team’s best guard and hit open shots. He was, again, a good player. But he was a secondary character in someone else’s story. He averaged nearly 16 points a game, but he was not an star. He was seen as a solid, high-floor, low-ceiling shooting guard.

Then came the trade that changed everything. In the summer of 2017, the Indiana Pacers were forced to trade away their disgruntled superstar, Paul George. The return was met with widespread ridicule: Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. It was seen as a paltry haul, a salary dump. Oladipo, who had played his college ball at Indiana University and was a beloved Hoosier, felt the disrespect. He returned to a state that felt like home, but he did so as the consolation prize.

What happened next was the stuff of legend. Oladipo didn’t just get better; he transformed. He dedicated his entire summer to reshaping his body and his game. He returned for the 2017-2018 season as a different human being. The player who left was a role player; the one who arrived was an apex predator.

In his first season with the Pacers, he was an absolute revelation. His “feathery” jump shot, once a liability, was now a weapon. His handle was tight. His first step was one of the most explosive in the league. He didn’t just play defense; he hunted. He led the entire NBA in steals with 2.4 per game, ripping the ball from unsuspecting opponents and turning it into a high-flying dunk on the other end.

He averaged 23.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and those 2.4 steals. The Pacers, predicted to be a lottery team, became one of the toughest outs in the East. Oladipo wasn’t just an All-Star; he was a leader. He was clutch. He famously hit a game-winning three against the Spurs and bellowed to the crowd, “This is my city!” And it was.

The awards piled up: NBA All-Star. NBA Most Improved Player. All-NBA Third Team. All-Defensive First Team. He had done it. He had made the leap from “good player” to “undeniable superstar.” He took LeBron James and the Cavaliers to seven grueling games in the first round of the playoffs, a series many believe the Pacers should have won. Victor Oladipo had arrived, and he was the future of the franchise.

The next season, 2018-19, was a confirmation. He was proving the leap was real, averaging nearly 19 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists, and was named an All-Star for the second consecutive year. The Pacers were a legitimate threat in the East. And then, on January 23, 2019, the storybook narrative unraveled.

It was a home game against the Toronto Raptors. Oladipo was chasing down a long outlet pass to Pascal Siakam, a routine defensive play he had made a thousand times. He planted his right leg to try and disrupt the play. It was non-contact. It was awkward. He crumpled to the floor.

The arena went silent. This was not a normal fall. He wasn’t just holding his knee; he was staring at it. Players from both teams, hardened competitors, looked away in visible distress. He was stretchered off the court, a towel covering his leg. The diagnosis was one of the most feared in all of sports: a ruptured quadriceps tendon in his right knee.

This is not a torn ACL, an injury from which athletes now routinely return. A ruptured quad tendon is a catastrophic injury. It’s an injury that permanently saps the “super” from a super-athlete. It robs a player of their explosion, their “first step,” the very essence of what made Oladipo great. It’s the injury that effectively ended Charles Barkley’s career. It’s the injury Tony Parker suffered at 34, not 26.

Victor Oladipo’s ascent was over. His fight for survival had begun.

He would miss more than a full calendar year—371 days, to be exact. When he finally returned to the Pacers’ lineup in January 2020, he was a different man. The explosive burst was gone, replaced by a painful-looking tentativeness. He was visibly unsure of his own body. He was no longer the hunter; he looked, at times, like the prey.

The magic was gone, and so was the trust. He was traded in January 2021, part of the complex four-team deal that sent James Harden to Brooklyn. Oladipo landed with the Houston Rockets, a team in a full-blown rebuild. It was a terrible fit, and he was a ghost of his former self. He wanted out.

He got his wish in March 2021, traded to his preferred destination: the Miami Heat. This was his chance at redemption. He was joining a tough, defensive-minded culture led by his friend, Jimmy Butler. He was back on a contender. He was going to rewrite his story.

He played exactly four games for the Miami Heat.

On April 8, 2021, after a dunk against the Lakers, he landed. He felt a pop. It was the same knee. The same right quad. The repair had failed. It was the darkest moment of his career. The basketball world, this time, didn’t just question if he could be a star again; they questioned if he could ever be a functional NBA player again.

He underwent a second, more invasive surgery on the same tendon. This time, he was ruled out indefinitely. Another year of his prime, gone. Another grueling, lonely, dark-room rehab. Most players would have retired. The physical toll was immense, but the mental toll was unimaginable. To fight all the way back, only to have the exact same part of your body fail you, is a sporting tragedy of the highest order.

But Victor Oladipo is not most players. He attacked his second rehab with the same relentless optimism that defined his first. He sat out for almost another full year, finally returning to the Heat in March 2022. He was no longer a star. He was a role player. But he was a good one.

In the 2022 playoffs, he was a key piece in Miami’s run to the Eastern Conference Finals. The explosion was still diminished, but his basketball IQ and defensive instincts were elite. He was a gritty, tough, veteran guard. He had successfully reinvented himself from a high-flying superstar to a tenacious, earth-bound role player. He had accepted his new reality and was thriving in it. The Heat rewarded him with a new two-year contract. The comeback, it seemed, was complete.

He entered the 2022-2023 season as a crucial part of the Heat’s rotation. He played 42 games, his most since his first injury. He was healthy. He was contributing. He was back.

And then, on April 22, 2023, fate dealt its cruelest blow.

It was Game 3 of the first-round playoff series against… the Milwaukee Bucks. Oladipo drove to the basket, went up for a layup, and landed. Again, non-contact. This time, it was his other knee. The left one. He hit the floor, and the reaction was immediate and heartbreaking.

He didn’t just grab his knee. He pounded the floor, screaming. His teammates, who had witnessed his two-year journey back, were shattered. Jimmy Butler turned away, unable to watch. Udonis Haslem, the team’s stoic leader, buried his face in a towel, weeping. They knew.

The diagnosis: a torn patellar tendon in his left knee. Another catastrophic, season-ending, career-threatening injury. This time, it felt final. The human body can only take so much.

While Oladipo began his third 12-month rehab, the business of the NBA moved on. This time, he wasn’t just an injured player; he was an asset. An expiring contract. In the offseason, the Heat traded him to the Thunder. The Thunder, not wanting to pay him, re-routed him to the Houston Rockets. The Rockets, in February 2024, traded him to the Memphis Grizzlies, who immediately waived him.

From 2018 All-NBA to 2024 waived salary filler. He was, for the first time since he was drafted, officially out of the league. His last NBA memory was being carted off the floor in agony. That was supposed to be the end.

But for Oladipo, “supposed to be” is a challenge.

He spent another year in the shadows, strengthening his left knee, then his right. He refused to let that be his final act. He worked out for teams this past summer, but no NBA contract came. He took a short-term deal to play for the Guangzhou Loong Lions in the Chinese Basketball Association, just to get on a court, just to show he could still move.

He played in preseason games, looking fluid. He proved his body could hold up. And now, he has made his move.

He didn’t take another multi-million dollar contract overseas. He signed up for the NBA’s developmental league. The G League. He is subjecting himself to the grind: the long bus rides, the small arenas, the non-glamorous life of a minor-league player. All for one more chance.

The Wisconsin Herd, the Bucks’ affiliate, claimed his rights. The irony is poetic. His NBA career effectively ended against the Milwaukee Bucks. Now, his NBA rebirth, if it is to happen, will happen for the Milwaukee Bucks organization.

This decision is not about money. This is about an obsessive, pathological love for the game of basketball. It’s about humility. It’s about a 32-year-old, two-time All-Star being willing to start over from absolute zero, to prove his worth alongside 19-year-olds, all for the chance to once again wear an NBA jersey.

We will likely never see the 2018 version of Victor Oladipo again. That player was a comet, brilliant and brief, extinguished by forces beyond his control. The player now in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is not fighting to reclaim his superstardom. He is fighting to reclaim his identity as a professional basketball player.

This is not a story of what could have been. That story is written. This is a story of what is—a testament to a human spirit that simply refuses to break. Victor Oladipo is not done writing his story, and he’s willing to go to the ends of the earth, or to the heart of Wisconsin, just to write one more page.