The Magic of Markelle Fultz, Post-Philly
After being labeled a bust, this young player’s career isn’t over yet; it may just be beginning
Rebuilding is part of human nature. Buildings are reconstructed when we want our architecture to be improved and bettered. Societies rebuild after depressions, wars, and hardships. But most importantly, people rebuild. Whenever we want to improve or restore something we know we once had in us, we work to get it back. We hustle, we sweat, we pain, until maybe, we get back what we formerly had.
Basketball has lots of rebuilding — in an organizational sense, and also for individual players — and I believe no player has done a better personal rebuild in recent years than Markelle Fultz.
Markelle Fultz was impassioned by the sport of basketball from a young age. He started playing on DeMatha Catholic’s High School basketball team in 2012. His first two years at DeMatha were rough and he was cut from the varsity roster in his sophomore year — not the most promising way to begin your dream career. His body was labeled as something like “Bambi’s” from the Disney movie by one of his coaches. But Fultz knew everything he believed he would achieve, and during his junior year, made sure to prove any doubters wrong. He grew from 5-foot-9 to 6-foot-3 and was a varsity starter that season. This is when Markelle put his name on the map for recruiting and entered into a new realm: the public eye.
After his junior season, he averaged 16.8 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 4.3 assists — much better than his previous years. Markelle went from being cut as a sophomore to becoming a five-star recruit in the span of one school year. Think about that. What have you done in the past 12 months? And this is where Markelle began to win my heart. He has shown throughout his career that he won’t give up. He is almost like an underdog main character in a cheesy basketball movie, except, it doesn’t really work out in the end. But it’s not the end yet. Because Markelle Fultz is a man who knows how to rebuild.
After his burst of improvement in high school, he warranted attention from major programs, eventually committing to play for the Washington Huskies. The Huskies’ plan for the 2016 season with Fultz was to have him play with Dejounte Murray and Marquese Chriss. However, this changed when both were drafted in the first round of that year’s NBA draft. This meant Markelle suddenly had to take on a leadership role on his new team, and to become the alpha that maybe he truly wasn’t — at least, not yet.
Fultz was the only bright spot on a miserable Huskies basketball team that went 9–22 that year. He averaged 23.2 points, 5.7 assists, and 5.9 rebounds at the end of his freshman year. After one amazing season, Markelle was the unanimous choice for the first overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. Reid Forgrave of CBS Sports said that Fultz was “as close as there is to can’t-miss as there is in this draft” and “the player with the highest ceiling.” These experts were right about Fultz going number one, but I don’t think any of them could have predicted what happened next.
The Philadelphia 76ers — a team that has long been associated with their flamboyant rebuilding “The Process” — picked Markelle Fultz with the first overall pick. They were a team that was finally looking to end their mediocrity and become a contender. Their core was destined to be Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and now, Markelle. But before the season even started, things became worrying. Fultz was rumored to have developed a different form in his free throw shot. When head coach Brett Brown was asked if he was comfortable with Markelle’s new form, he simply responded with “No, and so we’re gonna get back on track.” It was hella weird, but at the time, it didn’t indicate the beginning of the end for Markelle’s sudden stardom.
Once the season started, Fultz was playing limited minutes, which is very strange for a seemingly healthy first overall pick. Markelle then said it was a shoulder injury that was prohibiting him from shooting how he normally would. The injury took a toll on his shooting in this time as he shot only 33% from the field and did not even attempt a three-pointer in four games. The Sixers sat Fultz indefinitely until his injury healed.
The 2018–19 season came and while originally Fultz had the starting shooting guard spot, it was then given to their shiny new trade acquisition, Jimmy Butler. This is a place Markelle had been before. He has seen this happen to him already, a spot he worked to get, suddenly lost. It seemed like Fultz was left out to dry. It got worse. Shortly after losing his starting spot, his shoulder issues were diagnosed as thoracic outlet syndrome, which is when nerves in your neck, arteries, or veins in the passageway from your lower neck down to the armpit area are compressed. This syndrome made functional movement almost impossible without pain for Markelle.
The Sixers then did the unthinkable and traded him to the Orlando Magic for virtually nothing. Yet, Markelle Fultz did what he did in high school and in college — he took a bad situation and found a way to thrive and prove his doubters wrong.
While the 2019–20 season was suspended from March to July, Fultz still managed to post an amazing season in the games before the season’s abrupt suspension. He started 59 out of 64 games for the Magic and proved to be the pivotal impact player he was destined to be. He improved in every category he could and when the season was suspended, he had an average of 5.0 field goals per game, 12.1 points per game, 5.2 assists per game, 1.3 steals per game, and 3.3 total rebounds per game compared to 3.4 field goals per game, 8.2 points per game, 0.9 assists per game, 0.9 steals per game, and 3.7 total rebounds in Philly a year prior. He did all of this while shooting 47% from the field. He also raised his free throw percentage from 56% to 72% which put him in the top 100 free throw shooters in the NBA that season.
When the NBA resumed regular season play (god bless!) Markelle was still shining and balling like he was before the League went into a bubble. At the time of this writing, Fultz has played four games in the bubble with an average field goal percentage of 44.4%, 9 total rebounds, 15 total assists, and 40 total points. The Orlando Magic finished the season as the eighth best team in the Eastern Conference.
Now who knows what he’ll do next. Markelle Fultz is a perfect example of personal rebuilding. He — on multiple occasions — has been in places where he would be viewed as a failure or a bust. He was supposed to be a difference-maker for a young and contending 76ers team, only to be given up on one year later.
Why does this story matter to me? Because I, myself, can relate to Markelle’s story of personal rebuilding. In 2017, when Markelle Fultz was drafted, I was 16-years-old. I was extremely overweight and I was in a terrible place mentally. I did not take care of myself, I constantly self-sabotaged myself and refused to apply myself in school. I felt like everyone in my life did not believe in me, like I had failed them. But in three years — like Markelle — I have rebuilt myself. I am healthier than I’ve ever been, I am in college with honors-level grades, and most importantly: I feel better than I ever fuckin’ did before. I can almost guarantee that is how Markelle Fultz feels as he continues to improve with each passing week as he gears up for next season as a rising point guard in the National Basketball Association.
Now, Fultz is only 22-years-old, and he may finally be ready to help elevate a team like he was predicted to. It’s almost like Markelle’s story is nothing but Magic from here on out, and we’re all rooting for him, because who wants to see another person’s rebuild fall short?
