The Markelle Fultz saga for the Philadelphia 76ers is always a strange one. The Sixers traded up in the 2017 NBA Draft and selected the young man out of Washington with the number 1 overall pick. His career was then riddled with a lot of bizarre moments.
He only played in 14 games as a rookie playing the first four games before he was out for a substantial amount of time with a shoulder injury. He then returned and he played the final 10 games of the regular season and got some good experience.
He then was an opening night starter in his second season as coach Brett Brown was trying to instill some confidence in the young man. He played in 19 games, starting 15 of them, but then he left the team and he went to go see a shoulder specialist and was later diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome which ended his season and he was then traded to the Orlando Magic.
Fultz’s former trainer, Keith Williams, joined The No Particular Hurry podcast with Dave Early and he was asked if he believed Fultz ever had a physical injury:
Nope…I think he got caught up in doing what people around him told him to say and do. He’s a young person. It had to be strange for him, because up to that point, in terms of basketball, he only had to listen to my voice so now he had to listen to numerous voices and my voice wasn’t there so I think it was almost a comfort to him to kinda hide. To almost become a different person.
Williams had been training Fultz since he was 7-years old and has known him for, obviously, a long time. The quote suggests that maybe this was all in Fultz’s head and that there was too much going on off the floor. He worked with him on his jump shot and he said in the past that when he saw Fultz’s new release he noticed it quickly and that Fultz told him “it feels like somebody’s holding my arms down”.
Former Sixers assistant general manager Marc Eversley, who is now the general manager of the Chicago Bulls, was high on Fultz and he wanted to bring him here. However, when times got tough, Williams added that the team did not believe in either Eversley or Fultz:
I just don’t think when the chips got down, I don’t think people believed in him or Markelle…for all we talk about Markelle averaging 13 or 14 this year, that’s what he would’ve averaged in Philly if he just played a lot. He averaged six or seven coming off the bench, it’s the same thing. He’s not a better player. He’s just playing more minutes and Orlando’s been gracious. Everything I’ve heard is that they don’t deal with negativity. If somebody ask him a question, they pretty much just walk away from it. For him, that’s a great thing, but I think he owes them that much to actually try and figure out what his problems are and make the best of it.
Fultz averaged 12.1 points and 5.1 assists as a starter for the Magic this season and he played well in the playoffs, but it’s looking like there was too much going on around him to really succeed in Philadelphia. A place like Orlando is good for him to focus more on basketball and fixing his own issues right now. [lawrence-related id=37843,37953,28070]