Markelle Fultz, from the abyss

Markelle Fultz still thereAlthough hardly anyone remembers him anymore. Working, adding hours of rehabilitation and set-up, sustaining the psychological punishment of injuries, the pressure of success required, the fight against one’s own body and a head on the verge of collapse. With, yet, 23 years and 274 days, Markelle Fultz is still there. And tomorrow, Monday, February 28, she will once again play an official NBA game.. It will be in the Orlando Magic-Indiana Pacers, a balance duel between two of the worst teams in the League (the worst and the fifth worst, specifically) but to which it is now convenient to look back: Fultz will play, and it is great news .

On that same track where he is going to return, the Amway Center in Orlando, He was struck down more than a year ago, on January 6, 2021: ligament rupture in the left knee after a bad gesture in a penetration, against the Cavs. The return to the abyss for a player who was beginning to emerge from an almost unfathomable darkness. He was averaging in the last games before that fateful action, which had him on the ground for several minutes before leaving the court in a wheelchair, more than 14 points and 6 assists, a sign of absolute progress in a 2020-21 season in which he stayed in eight games and, finally, 12.9 points and 5.4 assists on average in almost 27 minutes per night. A hint of resurrection sent to the fridge.

Prior to that, Fultz had signed a three-year, $50 million extension with the Magic (in December 2020), almost a leap of faith for a franchise in full reconstruction, in the zero zone and with nothing to lose. Before, in February 2019, he had been transferred to Central Florida by the Sixers, who got rid of a player not long before strategic, called to be a star, in exchange for (on paper) very little: Jonathon Simmons, a secondary very secondary and two draft rounds, a second from the Cavs and a first from the Thunder with which, stuffthe Sixers took Tyrese Maxey, now a fundamental player in their plans for the present and future.

And before, long before, Fultz’s future was a matter of major debate in the NBA. The pick with which he ended up being number 1 in the draft in 2017 after a stellar season in Washington (23.2 points, 5.7 rebounds, 5.9 assists) began his journey in 2013, in the megatraspaso from Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce from the Celtics to the Nets. After the lottery gave that 1 of 2017 to the verdesthey accepted the Sixers’ offer and sent him to Philadelphia in exchange for his pick (number 3) and a first of 2019. With the latter the Celtics punctured (they chose Romeo Langford). But the 2017 game went very badly for some and very well for others: the Sixers played it because they believed that Fultz was the third leg, the point guard who would complete a big three tremendous and never was with Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. But Fultz ended up playing only 33 games in less than two seasons in Philadelphia. For giving up the 1, the Celtics took an extra first round and that pick 3 who hit the mark: Jayson Tatum. Thus, behind the scenes and pending a whirlwind of factors that includes the purest chance, history is written.

Futlz’s path in Philadelphia was terrible, while the process it didn’t finish booting. A strange shoulder injury and a controversy over whether or not he had changed his shooting mechanicsor rather whether he had done it because of those shoulder problems or not (if it was before the chicken or the eggoh well), they obscured a path along which even premature retreat came to loom. overwhelmed, subjected to enormous scrutiny and weighed down by an injury that prevented him from getting out of the well, Fultz went through hell that ended in that second opportunity in Orlando. The deconstruction had been such that he was no longer about being a great star, just about feeling like a basketball player again. And from there, to see how far he could go… In that first phase, in the most basic return, things were going well in Orlando, extension included. Until the damn knee injury, from which he comes back with optimism: “I feel stronger now. This injury has helped me to work on many things. It had been a long time since I felt so good physically. I speak in an integral way, of how I feel all the muscles, of the sensations with certain parts of my body. It’s the best time I’ve been to go back and play basketball”.

It’s on time jump on the bandwagon of rebuilding the Magic, who are going for one of the first picks of the next draft as they coddle their two top 10 picks from the past: the guard Jalen Suggs, number 5, and the forward Franz Wagner, chosen with the 8. The first has more franchise player ceiling but it is the second that is leaving better news, for now. Also, you have to see where Wendell Carter Jr, Mo Bamba, Cole Anthony, Chuma Okeke and RJ Hampton end up. AND, bigger issue, how they come back after their serious knee injuries Fultz and Jonathan Isaac, a forward (24 years old) with the ability to be one of the best defenders in the NBA and a number 6 in the 2017 draft, the same as Fultz, but another player who seems to be cursed. He has only played 136 games in the NBA so far, the last one in August 2020, more than a year and a half ago.