The Fultz trade
JUNE 19, 2017: Traded a 2017 1st round draft pick (Jayson Tatum was later selected) and a future 1st round draft pick to the Boston Celtics for a 2017 1st round draft pick (Markelle Fultz was later selected). (Future 1st-Rd pick will either be LAL’s 2018 pick if it falls between 2 & 5, or the better of PHI & SAC’s 2019 picks, unless it is the #1 pick)
Grade: F. Markelle Fultz might turn into a very good NBA player but it is not going to be for the 76ers. The misguidedness of this trade has been hashed and rehashed. Basically, Colangelo gave Boston a future first-round pick (which will be No. 13 this year) to move up two spots to the first spot and take Fultz, while the Celtics settled for Tatum, who has been a much better player, at No. 3.
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One thing to point out is, at the time, Colangelo was praised for the move while Boston GM Danny Ainge was roasted for giving up a chance to add Fultz.
To whiff on a trade for the No. 1 overall pick is about as egregious a mistake a general manger can make (some argue this was Colangelo’s second strikeout, having taken Andrea Bargnani at No. 1 with Toronto in 2006),
Believe it or not, there was another Colangelo trade on the same draft day that might have been even a worse error in judgement:.
JUNE 22, 2017: Traded a 2020 1st round draft pick and a 2020 2nd round draft pick to the Orlando Magic for Anzejs Pasecniks. (2020 1st-rd pick is OKC’s pick and is top-20 protected. If it doesn’t convey, it will become OKC’s 2022 & 2023 2nd-rd picks) (2020 2nd-rd pick is less favorable between Nets and Knicks picks)
Grade: F-. The talent evaluation was so off, one has to wonder if Sixers personnel director Marc Eversley‘s candidacy to replace Colangelo was damaged by being part of this debacle.
Colangelo took the first-rounder from the Jerami Grant trade and threw in a second-rounder from the large Hinkie stockpile to Orlando for the No. 25 selection in the 2017 draft.
Talented players like Kyle Kuzma (recently picked for the USA Select team), Derrick White and Josh Hart were still on the board but Colangelo picked Pasecniks, a 7-foot-2 stringbean who was a nonentity on a Spanish League team. Three years later, Pasecniks is still playing in the Spanish League, where he does not even average double digits.
In the entire 2017 NBA Draft, 31 out of the 32 first round draft picks have played in the NBA – Pasecniks is the only exception.
Making the pick even more egregious, if possible, is the reasoning Colangelo gave for picking him. He said the Sixers had to ‘draft and stash‘ because they had no spot on the roster for another young player.
Yeah, he thought the Sixers were just too darn deep after that big 31-win season. Who needs promising young players?
As a side note, Elton Brand recovered the Oklahoma City first-rounder in the Markelle Fultz trade.