Markelle Fultz and the yellow brick road to minutes
After what may be the workout video to end all workout videos, we can now assess one of the biggest basketball enigmas in terms of actual court production.
We’ve all seen the big news from last week: Trump’s impeachment, Boris Johnson apologising to the Queen and Markelle Fultz’s workout video. It’s weird that the news that Fultz, a basketball player, will play basketball is even a big deal. But I guess that’s why it’s so interesting.
Wherever you stand on the polarising Fultz debate, if he’ll actually be good, whether he was actually injured or whatever you want to complain about, it’s all about to be settled this season.
He’s going to be paid just over $10m each of the next two seasons after the Orlando Magic picked up his team option for the 2020/21 season, and so far, all they have to show for their investment is a freaking awesome workout video.
I fully understand why the Magic picked up the option: they knew it was coming when they traded for him and by doing it so early, you’re signalling to a guy who was rumoured to have some confidence issues that you believe in him.
My problem is, why not just wait a few more weeks?
The deadline for rookie scale options is October 31st, a whole month away. Orlando has much more intel on the Fultz situation than the rest of the world right now, but if the young guard is going to play in the preseason, why not just wait a few more games before guaranteeing it?
The cost of wanting to express confidence in your player will hardly decrease after seeing a couple of preseason games and even better, it might give him a bigger boost if he plays poorly and then sees the front office put their trust in him.
But that’s behind us now and I do apologise for wasting a couple of paragraphs of your time.
In the video he was playing against DJ Augustin and Michael Carter-Williams, the other guards ahead of him in the rotation. That’s a pretty obvious comment, they’re the other players in the same position as him.
But it got me thinking: does Fultz have what it takes to outplay either one or both of those guys?
Is a former number one overall draft pick able to earn a spot ahead of Augustin and another formerly prized Philadelphia guard in MCW? If he can’t crack into possibly the weakest point guard lineup in the league what happens then?
The first hurdle in his way will be the backup guard minutes and the former Rookie of the Year in Michael Carter-Williams (how weird is it that he was the ROY in a draft with Giannis, Gobert and Victor Oladipo?).
After playing around 18 minutes per game in Orlando, MCW proved where he’s valuable: he plays his ass off on defence and hope nobody notices the offence.
In a very small sample size in Orlando (222 minutes), MCW was the best guard in the league in terms of block percentage and defensive and offensive rebound percentage among guards, per Cleaning the Glass. He committed fouls at one of the lowest marks in the league and got his hands in passing lanes for steals.
On the other end of the court though, it was a whole different story: he shot less than 20 percent on all three-point attempts (3–19) and was in the bottom first percentile of guards in terms of effective field goal percentage.
That’s some serious bricklaying going on and it was worse in his stint with the Rockets at the start of the season.
This may be the best first barometer for Fultz because, if he’s not as good on defence as MCW, he has all the room in the world to make up for it on offence.
I think he can easily crack into the rotation here and even play alongside MCW if need be, although if Fultz’s jumper is still broken it might look a bit ugly out there. Orlando was a good defensive team last season (eighth in the league according to Cleaning the Glass) but they didn’t turn their good defence into offence.
They were able to get stops and play a Steve Clifford brand of basketball, but there is nobody who’s a threat in transition, no guards that efficiently forced the ball off steals and rebounds.
Fultz could be a spark off the bench and add speed to a team is full of long, lanky players that can get in passing lanes. Having a guard that can handle the ball would be the perfect compliment.
It’s very likely that he’ll crack into backup minutes early too since the Magic have a lot invested in him. But can he dethrone Augustin?
I bet that you don’t often read about people dethroning DJ Augustin much; welcome to The Deep Two.
Augustin’s numbers don’t blow you off the page, but he is an efficient, low-volume shooter on a bad offensive team. Wow, that’s really fun to talk about.
But in all seriousness; if Fultz is to crack a starting role, he’ll have to become a better offensive creator (technically, he’ll have to prove those skills exist full stop, but that’s what’s so fun about him).
Augustin plays a very efficient Morey ball-brand of basketball — sticking to threes and layups and has an effective field goal percentage in the ninety-fourth percentile for his positional grouping per Cleaning the Glass.
The problem is: Fultz hasn’t proven he can shoot. If he can’t and the hitch still exists in his jump shot, it might be a bit hard for him to play serious minutes. Augustin is able to play because he excels as a shooter and defences respect him.
It’s interesting coming up to preseason how much Fultz trusts his jump shot. This goes back to the earlier point: why pick up his option to early? Why didn’t Orlando wait for at least a few games, see how willing he was to take it or better yet, make them.
If he can shoot as well as the workout video tells us, there shouldn’t be a problem and at least he can work on his game while being passable as a shooter.
If he can’t make any outside shots, his ceiling might fall from an athletic DJ Augustin type to Michael Carter Williams. And this world has enough Michael Carter-Williams.
