The latest episode of "THE VO SHOW" on YouTube gives viewers an inside look at Victor Oladipo's rehab. The 14-minute video shows him working with a trainer at the University of Miami and going through a variety of drills. We asked Dr. Rodney Benner, a veteran knee specialist and orthopedic surgeon at the Shelbourne Knee Center in Indianapolis, to watch and give his assessment of how the Pacers star looks and when he might be back on the court. While Benner has not personally examined Oladipo, he has experience working with patients who have suffered similar injuries.

'He looks fantastic'

Benner's first comment was that Oladipo "looks fantastic" for having suffered the injury -- a ruptured quad tendon in his right knee -- just five-and-a-half months ago.

"To be able to do a lot of stuff they were doing on the court, I think it’s pretty great," Benner said. "The main things early on after surgery is trying to not bend the knee too much so you allow the tendon to heal in a very strong way. Once you're confident the tendon is healed, you've got to start progressing the bending a lot more to get all of his range of motion back. His range of motion looks fantastic. It looked like his knee was bending almost all the way up, almost similar to his other side, which is a feat in and of itself."

...But this is just one step in a long process

While Benner was optimistic about what he saw from the video, he cautioned that this is just one step in a lengthy process. There are tougher tests ahead that will tell more about how Oladipo is progressing.

"Doing it by yourself with nobody around in predictable circumstances is a great thing he's able to do, however, obviously it's a much different level of readiness for return to play to be able to not only do all those things, but do them when somebody is coming at you, do them when they're unexpected and not having that lingering doubt of, 'If somebody jumps in front of me and I have to respond by moving and cutting, do I feel confident without even thinking about it?' There's so many different levels," Benner said. "Can I do it at all, can I do it in a controlled environment, can I start to do it with somebody against me and can do I it explosively without thinking twice?"

So what's next?

"The next step is to start adding strengthening, get all that strength back and put it in play on the court," Benner said.

OK, so how long until he's back with the Pacers?

That's hard to say.

When IndyStar spoke with Benner in January after the injury, he projected a recovery timetable of 6-9 months. But Pacers president Kevin Pritchard said recently that the team hopes to have him back by December or January, which would be closer to 11 months of recovery. Why the discrepancy, especially if Oladipo looks like he's making good progress?

Well, a few reasons.

"You don't want to put out there that he's going to make a certain time then not have him feel right getting back there, then have people have the perception that he's not pushing hard enough," Benner said.

But also, there's not much precedence for this type of injury in a high-level athlete like Oladipo. It usually happens in older populations.

"To put an estimate on return to play is really a guess," Benner said. "Nobody has great experience with an injury in an athlete like him."

What can fans expect when he returns?

Even when Oladipo returns, there's no guarantee that he immediately returns to All-Star form.

"The hard part with the injury he had is that explosion and that explosiveness is a big part of his game," Benner said. "I'm sure there will be times early on in his return when that explosion may not be there, but it looks like he's well on his way to trying to reach that goal. There may be times he doesn't have that extra gear that makes him special early on after his return."

There's also the mental side of recovery.

"I think it's a misconception to try to separate those two," Benner said. "Athletes will feel confident if they know things are physically good, and vice versa. One of the reasons I think people mentally can't handle getting back in the game is they know whatever injury they're dealing with isn't quite right yet physically."