Markelle Fultz would look great holding a Philadelphia 76ers’ jersey on draft night.
The Philadelphia 76ers are reportedly exploring a trade for the Boston Celtics’ No. 1 pick with plans to target Washington point guard Markelle Fultz. The 6-foot-4 point guard is widely regarded as the top prospect in the NBA Draft, and he would certainly look good in a Sixers jersey. Here are five reasons why he’d be a perfect fit.
5. Markelle Fultz is the best player in the 2017 draft
Any time a franchise has an opportunity to walk away with the best player in a draft, it’s worth exploring. That’s especially true when the the prospect in question is the best point guard prospect in at least five years.
Fultz was an absolute monster in his one season at Washington, averaging 26.0 points, 6.6 assists and 6.4 rebounds per 40 minutes. He posted a reasonably efficient 55.8 true shooting percentage and shot 41.3 percent from behind the arc. While there are reasons to be skeptical that he’ll maintain that 3-point percentage — namely his poor free throw shooting — Fultz certainly deserves to be classified as a three level scorer.
The Washington guard is an elite ball-handler who can break down defenses with a wide variety of moves off the bounce. His ability to get into the teeth of defenses can open up shots for his teammates, which will be even more valuable in the NBA where he’ll have shooters that he didn’t have with the Huskies.
Landing No. 1 matters even more because the players behind Fultz, including Lonzo Ball and Josh Jackson, don’t have the same ceiling. Fultz has a legitimate chance to lead a team deep into the playoffs at some point in his career as the primary option. If you can lock that up, you should.
4. Markelle Fultz fills a positional need
The Sixers need a point guard. That’s not really a secret. TJ McConnell is a great story and a totally useful basketball player, but he’s probably not the guy you want running your team if you have playoff aspirations. Meanwhile, Fultz, as we’ve discussed, is the best player in the draft and he happens to be a point guard. That’s a match made in heaven.
It’s also fairly important that Philadelphia land a point guard in this draft if they want a point guard via the draft rather than in free agency. The 2018 draft class has a couple of decent point guards at the top of it, but neither Collin Sexton nor Trevon Duval are really in the same class as Fultz, Lonzo Ball or Dennis Smith Jr. The 2019 draft also probably won’t add many, if any, point guards who can rival this class. In general, upcoming high school recruiting classes are viewed as weaker than this season’s crew of one-and-dones, so pulling the trigger now makes quite a bit of sense.
Locking down Fultz would set the Sixers up with their point guard of the future with no worries about future drafts or having to track one down in free agency.
3. Markelle Fultz pairs well with Joel Embiid
The Philadelphia 76ers already have a couple of really good prospects on their roster, so it is worth examining how Markelle Fultz would fit with both Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. We’ll start with the former and then talk about the latter next.
The obvious and immediate attraction to a Fultz-Embiid pairing is the possibility of playing the two in pick-and-rolls. The Washington guard was one of the best pick-and-roll ball-handlers in college basketball last season. Fultz averaged 1.042 points per possession (PPP) (88th percentile) on pick-and-rolls when factoring in both his buckets and assists, per Synergy Sports. He is a lethal scorer out of the sets as well, ranking in the 93rd percentile last season at 1.011 PPP.
Fultz would be paired with an elite roll man in Embiid. The 7-footer averaged 1.14 PPP (72nd percentile) on 3.2 possessions per game last season, per NBA.com. Embiid is a good enough shooter that his ability to pop to the 3-point line adds another wrinkle to the attack and would let Fultz go one-on-one with Embiid’s defender.
In a vacuum, this pairing is perfect, but it is worth noting that late in game there could be some spacing concerns with the Fultz-Embiid pick-and-roll given that one of the off ball players, Simmons, is unlikely to have the gravity as a shooter to keep opposing defenders honest.
2. Markelle Fultz pairs well with Ben Simmons
The other important piece in this equation is Ben Simmons, the player the Philadelphia 76ers drafted with the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft. While there would be some potential spacing concerns late in games with the Markelle Fultz-Joel Embiid pick-and-roll, those concerns would be smaller with a Fultz-Simmons action given Embiid’s solid 3-point shot.
In fact, the Fultz-Simmons pick-and-roll has the potential to be deadly. Using Simmons as the screener would have a lot of benefits. For starters, on a really small number of possessions in college, Simmons averaged 1.227 points per possession (PPP) (82nd percentile) when finishing possessions as the roll man, per Synergy Sports. What that number doesn’t tell us is how effective he was passing out of those situations. Getting Simmons into four-on-three situations with him moving downhill towards the basket would be deadly first and foremost because of his court vision.
Flipping the set and having Fultz set the screens would be slightly less deadly given that teams could sag off of Simmons, but it still has some potential as getting Fultz moving downhill against a rotating defense is also a dangerous proposition for opponents.
This setup would also give Philadelphia a pair of primary ball-handlers who could initiate offense. Few teams have that luxury.
1. Philadelphia still needs its franchise centerpiece
The purpose of Sam Hinkie’s Process was to use the NBA Draft to find a superstar. It’s cheaper and easier than acquiring one via a trade or free agency and from that perspective, moving up to snag Markelle Fultz makes sense. In fact, the truth is the Philadelphia 76ers are still looking for that long-term superstar, which is why this is the No. 1 argument for getting Fultz in a Sixers jersey.
The key here is that we don’t actually know whether or not Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid are the long-term solution. Simmons is a legitimately great prospect, but he has yet to play a game in the NBA and has plenty of warts that could hinder his chance at being an NBA superstar. On the other hand, we know Embiid is great. In 31 games this season, he averaged 28.7 points, 11.1 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per 40 minutes. The problem, of course, is that there are serious questions about his ability to stay healthy.
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Drafting Fultz with the No. 1 pick would maximize the Sixers’ chances of fulfilling The Process by landing their franchise player. If you end up with two or three, that’s even better, but the shot at finding even one of them is why Philadelphia is justified in making this move.