With Markelle Fultz’s preseason performance suggesting he regained some of his ability to shoot after losing it last season due to injury and bad advice, how good does Fultz have to be this season to no longer be seen as a bust?
Markelle Fultz’s rookie season was so disappointing that many people believed former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Bryan Colangelo should’ve been fired for trading multiple first-round picks for him, before he was fired for giving confidential information to his wife who leaked that information over Twitter.
Playing in 14 of the Sixers’ 82 regular season games, Fultz averaged 7.1 points, 3.8 assists, and 3.1 rebounds while playing 18.1 minutes per game. One of Fultz’s best attributes in college, and the main reason he seemed like the perfect player to put next to Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, was his ability to hit pull-up jumpers from mid-to-three-point range. In college, Fultz made 47.6 percent of all of his shots and 41.3 percent of them from behind the three-point line.
His shooting allowed him to average 23.2 points, 5.9 assists, and 5.7 rebounds per game while playing 35.7 minutes per game at Washington.
I believed that Fultz was the best player in the 2017 NBA draft and would’ve done the same trade Colangelo did. Fultz’s play last season, however, put me in the odd position of feeling extremely disappointed in what I was seeing, but feeling a need to defend and support a player taken by a general manager I disliked.
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Fultz’s Washington team missed the NCAA Tournament, so many Sixers and NBA fans never saw the player I saw in college and only had the version of Fultz that struggled to make a free throw and was at times more afraid to attempt a jump shot than Simmons.
The Fultz that played for the Sixers last season looked like an Anthony Bennett-level bust and I can’t blame anyone for wishing that the Sixers traded him for an established star in Kawhi Leonard or Jimmy Butler. But Fultz’s play was so bad last season, that he wasn’t good enough to convince a team to give up their unhappy star for him.
Outside of his performance, Fultz’s biggest problem is the player taken with third pick in the 2017 draft, Jayson Tatum — the pick the Sixers had before they traded for Fultz. Tatum averaged 13.9 points, 1.6 assists, and 5.0 rebounds while playing 30.5 minutes per game.
While his regular season stats were good, his postseason stats can almost cause physical pain when compared to Fultz’s postseason stats. Fultz’s 1.7 points, 1.7 assists, and 1.0 rebounds in 7.7 minutes per game isn’t on pace with Tatum’s 18.5 points, 2.7 assists, and 4.4 rebounds in 35.9 minutes per game.
Watching Tatum’s performance in the playoffs made me happy I didn’t write a draft preview of him, because I didn’t think he would reach this level or outperform Fultz. But watching the success T.J. McConnell had against the Celtics in the playoffs made me think that the Sixers could’ve defeated the Celtics if the Fultz was the player I saw at Washington. .
The Fultz that played for the Sixers this preseason is clearly better than the Fultz that played for the Sixers last season, but he only made 47.1 percent of his shots that were fewer than five feet away from the basket and 44.4 percent of his shots between 10 -14 feet.
Not everything involving Fultz’s shot was bad this preseason. He made 60 percent of his shots between 15-19 feet, made 75 percent of his free throws, and 1-5 shots from behind the three-point line.
Fultz replaced J.J. Reddick in the starting lineup this season, and his performance against the Boston Celtics in the first game of the season suggests he isn’t ready for the promotion. Fultz only shot 2-7 and ended with 5 points, two assists, and three rebounds. Reddick averaged 17.1 points per game last season while making 46 percent of his shots overall.
I don’t expect to see the Fultz I thought the Sixers were drafting or for him to be anywhere close Tatum this season, but if he can average at least 10 points per game while making over 40 percent of his shots, I’ll still hold out hope that he will eventually reach the potential many people saw in him.