The Sixer Sense
Fansided

Markelle Fultz might not play this year

By Luke Swiatek

PHILADELPHIA, PA - FEBRUARY 2: Markelle Fultz #20 of the Philadelphia 76ers warms up prior to the game against the Miami Heat on February 2, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - FEBRUARY 2: Markelle Fultz #20 of the Philadelphia 76ers warms up prior to the game against the Miami Heat on February 2, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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Future implications

All fear-mongering aside, how does this impact the Sixers moving forward? Looking on the bright side, it actually doesn’t change too much. This looked to be a team on course to be slightly above .500 before the season started, and that’s still the path we’re on at the moment. If Fultz doesn’t play, we won’t get any worse, we just won’t necessarily get that much better.

Rookies, especially rookie point guards, often hurt their teams anyway in terms of wins and losses. Perhaps there’s an argument to be made that having Fultz out for the whole season will allow him to really focus on himself and develop his game like Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid did when they were out, and come back a better player next year.

In the meantime, the rest of our young team can continue on and get valuable playoff experience (I’d be satisfied with taking the Raptors to six games or something like that), whereas integrating Fultz late in the season might mess up chemistry/rotations and he might just not be that good in his first few real games as a pro.

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Although Colangelo stood pat at the trade deadline, we definitely could still use more backcourt depth though, especially if Fultz never comes back. Marco Bellinelli and Joe Johnson are some potential buyout candidates that we could use our final roster spot on.

I don’t think either of them is going to swing the outcome of a playoff game for the Philadelphia 76ers, but that’s what people said about Joe Johnson last year, and look what happened in the Jazz’s first round series against the Clippers. Depth matters, and you never know what will happen, is all I’m saying.

Either way though, there’s no one who we can get that will come even close to how good Markelle Fultz was supposed to be, and that’s crappy. (If anyone suggests Derrick Rose… I might just break my own kneecaps out of sadness.)

The basketball gods may have taken one third of our young Big Three, for this year at least. Perhaps they were offended by The Process. What’s next now from our cruel basketball overlords? Will they cause one of our players to randomly disappear?

Perhaps even worse, will they snub a Philadelphia 76ers player from the All-Star game, and then when given three chances to correct their mistake, still refuse to do so? Will they even make two of the other three replacement players point guards to further rub it in?

Next: Why was Simmons snubbed from the All-Star game?

Oh. Right.