Sixers: Furkan Korkmaz in shooting slump or was hot start an aberration?

The Philadelphia 76ers were gifted by some of the best play of Furkan Korkmaz‘s career to start the season. The Turkish sharpshooter was looking like a top-5 player on the roster. However, this current five-game skid has brought into question the legitimacy of his hot start to begin the season.

Throughout his career, Korkmaz has proven to be a streaky shooter, and at the beginning of this season, it appeared that he had finally broken that stigma. However, this cold spell has brought that issue to light again.

Is Korkmaz in a cold spell for the Sixers or will he always be a streaky shooter?

The former first round pick of the Sixers has carved out a nice role for himself over the years in Philly. He was just paid $15 million for over three years this past offseason. Yet, there’s a reason he wasn’t paid more.

Prior to this year, Korkmaz had been a rather streaky shooter from deep. Only in the 2019-20 season did he shoot above 40.0 percent from the 3-point line. This year he’s shooting 34.4 percent from the 3-point and is scoring 10.9 points per game (career-high).

His three percentage is so low because of this current cold streak. In the past five games, he’s made 7-34 of his 3-pointers, which means he’s made only 20.6 percent of his long-range shots. Considering that he’s a marksman that’s pretty horrendous.

With those stats, plus his history of being a streaky shooter, it’s fair to say that Korkmaz hasn’t dramatically improved with his consistency. He won’t be in the Sixth Man of the Year conversations as I wrote he might be early in the season and that’s ok.

Korkmaz is still a valuable player for the Sixers despite proving he’s still a streaky shooter. He’s going to have his off nights, but he could also go off four 20 points on any given night which is valuable to have come off the bench.