Philadelphia 76ers Ben Simmons Markelle Fultz 1st postseason

The Philadelphia 76ers selected top picks Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz in consecutive NBA Drafts. But neither enjoyed NCAA tournament play. The 2018 NBA Playoffs is their first postseason, and they finally learn playoff basketball.

The Philadelphia 76ers had the difficult selection of choosing the first player in both the 2016 and 2017 NBA Drafts. In choosing Ben Simmons in 2016, and Markelle Fultz in 2017, the team imported the two best backcourt players of their respective years. Top picks of the NBA Draft seldom land on the same team. They never debut on the same team in the same season.  While the Philadelphia 76ers aim at the 2018 NBA Playoffs, there are several aspects of the postseason which are not getting much public awareness.

Of course, there is the headlining Ben Simmons, whose rookie season is so far ahead of anyone else in the field, that some now argue he is not a true rookie. Be that as it may, The reality is that Simmons sat out an entire season due to a foot injury. And with any prolonged absence, the positives of acclimating to a new NBA team and city are offset against the lengthy time away from the basketball court. But Simmons did not arrive to the NBA fresh out of the NCAA tournament. LSU didn’t get the nod. So while other NCAA teams competed, Simmons readied for the draft.

Makeover Markelle

And then there is Markelle Fultz. He sat out nearly his entire NBA rookie season, thanks to a scapular muscle imbalance, poor shooting mechanics, and a series of conflicting stories that cancel one another out in the grand scheme of things.  But the young man arrived to the NBA as one of the most highly regarded talents to arrive to the NBA. And the consensus for the NBA class of 2017 was that he was the premier prospect.

But like the top pick of the 2016 NBA Draft, Markelle Fultz did not carry his team to the NCAA tournament. In fact, he couldn’t even accomplish .500 basketball with the Washington Huskies. and like his teammate, Fultz did not arrive to the NBA fresh out of competing in the NCAA tournament, nor even the NIT tourney. He prepared for the NBA Draft.

Ben Simmons refinement

Rookie point guard Ben Simmons is an incredible athlete at the most demanding NBA position. And if that is not enough, he’s blessed with the wrong physical dimensions for the position. After all, he’s 6-foot-10 and 230 pounds. He competes at a position where agility, speed, twitchy quickness, and a feel for the court are the expectations. And I don’t have to quote Einstein’s theory of relativity to explain how much easier it is to get a 6-foot-4 200 pound frame moving quick than a 6-foot-10 230 pound frame.

But Ben Simmons is no ordinary NBA talent. In fact, the NBA has not seen a rookie start off THIS good since Oscar Robertson.  No, he’s not scoring 30 points a game. But he’s practically a swiss army knife on the basketball court. And as a rookie, the more he plays, the better he plays.

Out from Embiid’s shadow

Joel Embiid is the star of the Philadelphia 76ers. It’s who he is. From the origins as the high risk/high reward player chosen by team president Sam Hinkie in the 2014 NBA Draft, to the social media superstar, Embiid embodies all that the Philadelphia 76ers are at this point in time.  But Ben Simmons is equally impactful. With the recent injury to Embiid, Ben Simmons now stands under the spotlight.  It’s important for Simmons to know he can pull the team through tough times.

He gets better with each game. In six games in April 2018, he’s averaging 18 points on 65.8 percent shooting, 9.7 rebounds and 9.3 assists per game. He’s also getting 2.5 steals per game on 30.8 minutes of play.

Ben Simmons is improving because that is exactly what very talented rookies do. And that upward trend will carry well into his first postseason experience.

Markelle Fultz mulligan

Rookie guard Markelle Fultz is one of the gutsiest, talented NBA players today. And as expected, he “re-debuted” in time to make the Philadelphia 76ers that much more interesting in the NBA Playoffs. Let’s face it, the storyline for Markelle Fultz’s first NBA season has enough twists, turns, and cul-de-sacs to make it worthy of a Agatha Christie novel. An incredible talent arrived in the hands of the team most equipped to correctly develop incredible talent.

But not all players land in the NBA basketball court with their engines revved. On the biggest basketball stage of the world, Markelle Fultz’s development was not quite ready for prime time. Why? Muscular imbalance was the official story.  But a rather prophetic article came out from his college performance predicting the very challenges he experienced in the NBA.  A naturally versatile athlete, Fultz’s NCAA experience was limited due to knee injuries that benched him for the final third of the season.

Coaching starved Fultz

At Washington, the team’s scheme was basically a blank canvas for Markelle Fultz to paint a play upon each game. As such, he became incredibly knowledgeable in working the Washington Huskies offense with the ball, and without the ball. He flexed between point guard and shooting guard, sometimes multiple times on the same play. But through it all, the talent was more artistic than scheme disciplined.

When Markelle Fultz arrived to Philadelpia, his development accelerated. No more “do what you feel”, the team began converting all that talent into focused play. However you want to interpret that, the trajectory hit a snag. Fultz found himself out of the rotation to repair and overcome the snag.  While that was confusing in real time, it is good news for the Philadelphia 76ers now.

1st post-season play

Its an uncanny fact that both Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz know the experience of hearing their names called first in their respective NBA drafts, but neither know the experience of post-season play. For a team that has been a mainstay of NBA Playoffs, it’s exciting to see the novelty of such talented players in that postseason forum. And it’s not just the two youngsters. International stars, who came to the NBA to compete with the best in basketball, now get that opportunity.

76ers vital to NBA Playoffs

The Sixers are a team which  brings a vital injection of novelty and entertainment to the NBA postseason. After all, the Philadelphia 76ers have risen from complete obscurity and disdane to the upper tier of the NBA in less than a single NBA season. And much like having two top-picks on the team with virutally no postseason experience, that’s both a bane and a boon.

The Philadelphia 76ers are one of the hottest and most unpredictable teams to enter the NBA Playoffs in years. To borrow a line from a great Broadway play, “Anything goes“.

A hero will emerge

The Philadelphia 76ers have filled the season with heroics. The team is clearly built around Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and to a lesser degree, Markelle Fultz. But the team is getting such incredible production out of veterans J.J. Redick, Marco Belinelli, and Ersan Ilyasova, that it’s impossible not to tip the cap in their direction. Then you simply must acknowledge the stymying defense of Robert Covington, the pinpoint accuracy of Dario Saric‘s three-point shooting, and the sheer audacity of T.J. McConnell.  But even there, we would miss the incredible offense of Amir Johnson against the Atlanta Hawks.

Ultimately, the Philadelphia 76ers are a closely knit team with players who are more than happy to pick up the game to help their teammates. That’s not by accident. That’s the result of head coach Brett Browns insistance that this team play to win, long before winning arrived.

Who will the next hero be?

To be honest, a half dozen names pop up in my mind. But I have to think Markelle Fultz will show up big in the playoffs. He is faster and more talented than many give him credit for. And as such, he becomes the Philadelphia 76ers secret weapon in post season.  That is not to say he will lead all scorers, or even the the scoring of the 76ers. But he has that game-momentum-changing style of play where he can get hot at critical moments during the game.

Of course, the return of Joel Embiid will be a welcome sight as well. The best estimations have him as potentially returning to the team for game two of round one playoffs.  His return may find him limited in playing minutes, but he will be a very empassioned player to have on the basketball court. And there are few teams with favorable matchup with Embiid playing center. In the end, this postseason experience will be the first of it’s kind for both Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz. Let’s hope it’s a good experience.