Philadelphia 76ers: Solving the mystery of Markelle Fultz

Former Philadelphia 76ers No. 1 overall draft pick Markelle Fultz has struggled to reach his potential in the NBA, and it’s been one big mystery

The 2017 NBA Draft has already produced two young stars in the NBA in Utah Jazz‘s Donovan Mitchell and Boston Celtics‘ Jayson Tatum, however the player that many believe touted the most potential of the draft hasn’t quite found his game

With the way both Mitchell and Tatum have hit the ground running in the NBA, many basketball fans are questioning if Markelle Fultz can now live up to the lofty high pick expectations.

Fultz is a smooth playmaking guard who has seemed to lose his confidence in his jump shot during his rookie season due to a upper body injury, and leading into this season has slowly showed promise and progress towards the player many project him to be.

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The struggles with his jump shot has caused Sixers’ head coach Brett Brown to develop Fultz on a measured limited minutes basis. However, that might be what is holding back Fultz from breaking out to the superstar that his talent demands.

To further break that down, lets briefly look over Markelle Futlz the young prospect.

When we look at Markelle Fultz’s game throughout his young basketball career, the best professional player comparisons for Fultz have been a right handed James Harden or even greater comp to Fultz game can be described as the second coming of former Portland Trail Blazers Guard Brandon Roy.

Fultz’s game and career are actually more closely tied to Roy than one might see at first glance. Both Brandon Roy and Markelle Fultz played their college basketball at the University of Washington. Brandon Roy entered the NBA with similar strengths and weaknesses as the aforementioned Markelle Fultz.

Roy, coming into the NBA, was compared to Jalen Rose for his ability to create off the dribble and break down the defense.

The only knocks on Roy’s game entering the NBA was his passive demeanor and a lack of a consistent outside shot. The scouting report on pre-NBA Brandon Roy are identical to Markelle Fultz, who in his only year at Washington (age 18) put up dominant numbers and better numbers than Roy at any year during his time at Washington. But to give a more modern comparisons of Fultz talent, we can look at reigning NBA MVP James Harden.

Harden’s pre-draft scouting report echos more of the same strengths and weaknesses as Brandon Roy. Harden strengths were described as follows:

"“Very smooth and crafty wing player. In terms of offense, his vision and playmaking might be his most impressive attributes.”With the one major weakness being:“Can Improve consistency of his outside shooting”."

Harden can be a great example for Fultz as to how great he can one day be the today’s NBA. Lastly, we look at Fultz pre-draft scouting report to showcase the immense similarities.

His strengths were labeled as:

"“A talented and smooth guard who can play on and off the ball and has big time scoring ability. Creativity is one of his trademarks”.The one major weaknesses of Fultz game being:“Jump shot has improved and can fill it up from outside but is a bit of a streaky shooter. More of a shot maker than a pure shooter”."

This is a accurate description of Fultz game still to this moment of his young basketball career.

Now, with a better understanding of the player we are dealing with, we can now look at why Fultz hasn’t be able to perform to the expectations that came with his top-end potential. After looking over what has went wrong with Fultz NBA career, we can point to one problem: Minutes.

The pointing to Fultz’s shooting or jump shot as a problem is a mute point, given that Fultz is a natural playmaker. Therefore only opportunities to feel out a defense over the course of an entire game could produce maximum results for a player of Fultz’s caliber. The Sixers by slowing developing Fultz have indeed hurt his progress.

Fultz’s minutes have been low for his rookie season (18.1 Minutes per Game) and still far too low in his second season ( 24.2 Minutes per game). Compare that to Brandon Roy, who had 35 minutes per game in his rookie season and then an increase to 37.7 minutes per game in his second NBA season. Or compare that to Donovan Mitchell, 33.4 minutes as a rookie and increased to 35.1 minutes per game this season.

Fultz will forever be connected to Jayson Tatum as the best talents of the 2017 draft class and being traded for each other prior to draft night. Tatum received 30.5 minutes per game as a rookie and has also seen as increase so far this season at 32.5 minutes per game.

The mystery of Markelle Fultz is really a simple solution. A player of Fultz’s ability just needs the time of the court to showcase his great talents. Just like James Harden early in his career with OKC, Fultz will need to get more minutes. Fultz needs to play 30 minutes per game or more, if not then the Philadelphia 76ers will be doing Markelle and NBA fans alike a great disservice.

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Even Fultz’s stat line per 36 minutes this season shows how good he already is, 14.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.5 steals. If the Sixers play more of TJ Connell over the course of the season, than Fultz that would be the same mistake OKC made years ago playing Thabo Sefolosha over future MVP James Harden.