How Victor Oladipo is redefining his career through biomechanics

On a warm summer day in Miami, Billy Donovan went to check on one of his most important players. Victor Oladipo was training at DBC Fitness, a progressive gym in the Design District with a client list that includes names like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Oladipo had already seen gains by the time Donovan dropped by, and was excited to show his head coach he was ready to bounce back from the least productive season since he was a rookie. He wanted to show Donovan the new and improved Oladipo. Donovan came away impressed, and was excited to see what Oladipo would do in his second season in Oklahoma City.

The Thunder and Donovan never got the chance to see that Oladipo. On the last day of June, they traded him to the Indiana Pacers for a one-year open house on Paul George. The player Oklahoma City traded was not the same player who had been a disappointment just months before. Oladipo knew it. His trainer knew it. Everyone else would soon find out.

Oladipo is this season’s most surprising player, playing for this season’s most surprising team. What’s so impressive about Oladipo’s improvement isn’t that he changed the way he plays, but rather how he prepares. Oladipo’s breakout season is a product of the work he put in months ago to fix a body that was already broken, after just four years in the NBA. What he did behind the scenes put him on the All-Star stage.

“I knew I needed to change a lot about my body and my mind,” Oladipo told The Step Back before a March game in Sacramento.

Specifically, he needed to change his hips. That’s what David Alexander, founder of DBC Fitness, said he found after he put Oladipo through an orthopedic assessment. The measurements showed that Oladipo had a number of back issues (he had a sway back and lost the curvature of his lumbar and thoracic spine) and his hips were so tight that it was preventing his hamstrings from firing at full strength. Alexander said they caught the issues just in time.

“One of the tires would have came off,” Alexander said on the phone. “The way he plays, how explosive he is, his body was not able to absorb that force if he didn’t start getting it corrected.”

The first thing the folks at DBC changed was Oladipo’s diet. No more refined sugar, flour or gluten. Instead of bottle service at LIV, he was drinking a gallon of water a day. He hired a chef. When they first started, Alexander had him keep a food journal and write down how certain foods made him feel after eating them. The goal: Remove anything that makes him feel bloated or sluggish. A perfect post-training meal was two pieces of chicken breast, a cup of quinoa and steamed vegetables. Alexander said Oladipo took to the program immediately. “He didn’t even blink. After that he said ‘I’m all-in. Whatever it takes.’ I could have told this guy to eat a brick and he would have eaten a brick.”

After three weeks at DBC, Oladipo posted a before and after. He went from 223 pounds to a lean 205.

Oladipo put his new body to work. As The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor reported, Oladipo worked with multiple skills trainers at I’m Possible Training and Integrity Hoops to put him through basketball drills that complemented his gym time in Miami. “If Oladipo was working on hip flexibility and quick-twitch muscle movements at DBC, then I’m Possible helped him translate it to quickness in the open floor, agility in tight spaces, and change of direction.”

At DBC, they run their athletes through three phases. They customized a routine to Oladipo’s body and taught him how to do the exercises properly. Alexander teaches his clients how to perform all the movements in their routines correctly before loading them with any weight. Doing a squat the wrong way risks injury, and that’s what an understanding of biomechanics helps to prevent. That’s phase one. Phase two adds the weights. Phase three focuses on the athletes performing movements they’d use in a game situation. It was during one of their last workouts in August when Alexander realized just how much Oladipo had improved.

“I remember he did this workout that just blew my f*****g mind,” Alexander remembered. “I said ‘This guy’s going to be a superstar man, this guy is going to be the next big thing.’”

Alexander had already been working with LeBron James since 2012, before opening DBC Fitness. In 2015, however, James’ body started breaking down. When he wasn’t on the court, he was laying on the sideline with a pillow under his back. He was on the path to needing surgery, a procedure that threatened to drain some of the superhuman powers from  James. That same year, Alexander opened up DBC Fitness with Donnie Raimon, who specializes in biomechanics — the study of movement patterns and biology. As ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported, James hired Raimon full-time, and Raimon moved to Ohio. They fixed his back, and LeBron himself has become an expert in biomechanics while prolonging his career.

James wasn’t the only Heatle breaking down toward the end of their four-year run. At 32 years old, Dwyane Wade’s knees were finally starting to get the better of him. During the 2013-14 season, the Heat put him on a “maintenance program” in order to save his body for the postseason. Wade played in only 54 games. Miami made it to the Finals, but lost to the San Antonio Spurs in five games. A few months later, they lost James to Cleveland.

Wade could no longer rely on James to carry the team when he was saddled by his long-problematic knees. Wade started with Alexander, who diagnosed that his knee didn’t have proper flexion. After two weeks of working with him, Alexander said, they started seeing his body functioning differently. The pain started to go away, and Wade has played at least 60 games in every season since. Wade credits his work at DBC with not only prolonging his career, but being able to play without pain.

“That’s always our objective, to get these guys out of pain because if they’re out of pain they’re going to be able to function at a higher level,” Alexander says.

Both James and Wade had seen resurgences in their Hall-of-Fame careers. Last year, Oladipo saw what biomechanics did for them and wanted in.

“Those are the best of the best,” Oladipo says. “So I reached out to David and things kind of worked out from there.”

Where James and Wade prolonged their already-defined careers through biomechanics, Oladipo redefined his. Oladipo knew he had All-Star potential. He just needed to strengthen the vessel for his talent. Oladipo will be 26 in May, smack dab in the middle of his hypothetical prime. As good as Oladipo has been this season, he’s only going to get better.

Young players around the league could look at Oladipo as an example. None of the advanced metrics projected Oladipo taking the leap he did. It’s easier to notice a broken jumper than it is to see when someone’s knee isn’t getting proper flexion. Trading a few days of practicing jumpers for some time to get introduced to biomechanics could be what they need to fulfill their potential.

The Pacers are in the playoffs, and Oladipo’s conditioning throughout the season will have him peaking at the right time. He works on his hips, legs and core before games. Swiss ball quad stretch to release his quads, 90-90 stretches and figure-four stretches for hip mobility, and strap stretches with flossing to loosen up the hamstrings. Alexander still texts Oladipo several times a week, checking in on his diet and exercise, and they’ll chat on the phone at least once a week. Alexander isn’t with Oladipo in Indiana like Raimon is with James in Cleveland, but it’s darn-near close.

Around the All-Star break, Alexander sent one of his soft tissue specialists to Indiana after he noticed Oladipo looking a little sluggish. They found that Oladipo’s hips were out of alignment.

“These are things that just happen. It’s nothing that every other guy on every other team doesn’t have, it’s just that Vic has me watching over him so I’m going to make sure we stay out in front of that stuff,” Alexander said. “It’s like a car, you put your oil in and after 3,000 miles you have to get it changed. If you keep the same oil in for 15,000 miles, guess what, something is going to happen.”

Oladipo just got behind the wheel of a new Italian sports car and he’s still learning to drive it. As good as he’s been, he can still get better and more comfortable playing in his body. He plans on going back to Miami to train every summer. Alexander said only so much can be done in one offseason, and there’s still a lot more to work on.

“This offseason when he comes back to us his program is going to be totally different, and he’s going to just get better and better and better,” Alexander said.

Next: Stating the case for every MVP candidate

After the playoffs, however they play out, Oladipo will go back to DBC for another assessment. They’ll determine what broke down over the course of the season and get to work, only this time they won’t have to spend valuable time getting Oladipo up to speed on biomechanics, proper exercise movements or eating patterns. He’ll be able to hit the ground running with proper form.

Asked what he wants to work on next with Oladipo, Alexander wouldn’t say.

“It’s top secret.”

We’ll just have to wait to find out.