HUSKIES’ FULTZ BLAZES TRICKY TRAIL
Markelle Fultz loves bikes — mountain bikes, BMX bikes, whatever you have with wheels. He has the scars on his hands, arms, shins and knees to prove it.
As a kid, he’d ride around his neighborhood. He has a BMX bike at Washington, and he estimates at least six between his mother’s house and his grandma’s house back in Maryland.
“I used to do crazy tricks,” Fultz says. “I would stand on the seat, wheelies, stuff like that.”
A precursor to the trick shots the Washington Huskies freshman attempts on the basketball court. Those shots — which go viral each time he shares them — include a nearly full- court- length backward shot and one in which he stands in the corner and throws the ball so that it curves back toward the basket.
The craziest part of Fultz’s story is not the crazy shots. It’s the fact he went from being an overlooked kid who played on his high school’s junior varsity team to a likely one- and- done star and the potential No. 1 pick in June’s NBA draft.
His mother, Ebony, said, “It’s surreal, totally surreal.” His college coach said it’s almost inexplicable. “If he were in North Dakota, then it’s understandable,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. “For him to be where he was, in that area, and a guard, it’s unheard of.”
Fultz’s rise has happened so fast he hasn’t had time to become anyone other than who he is. Which is a goofy, fun- loving kid who works hard to be the best at everything he puts his mind to.
“He’s not gone through that thing where everybody’s putting you on this high pedestal and kissing your feet,” Romar said. “He’s had to work, and he’s been motivated for so long. Now it’s just ingrained in him.”
COACHES CAUGHT ON EARLY
When Huskies associate head coach Raphael Chillious is on the recruiting trail, he likes to get to gyms early, “so I can get my ear hustle on,” as he puts it. He makes small talk, picks up tips on certain players and sometimes — fortuitously in this case — catches the JV team play before the varsity game.
“So I sit down ( at DeMatha Catholic in Hyattsville, Md.) to watch the JV game,” said Chillious, a Maryland native who remains well- connected within the D. C. basketball community. “And I’m watching a little 5- foot- 9 kid who’s just all over the place making plays. His arms are down to his feet, he’s got these gigantic hands, big feet — so you can tell he’s going to grow. By halftime I was like, ‘ That kid right there, if he grows at all, he’s not going to be just good, he’s going to be an NBA All- Star. An All- Star.’ ”
Chillious knew he sounded slightly ridiculous. But he’d seen and coached enough talent to know, rather quickly, what NBA- caliber players look like. Or, at the very least, what their frames and skill sets look like.
Even though Fultz was admittedly rather unique.
“His game was real unorthodox,” Chillious said. “It’s still unorthodox. The way his body moves, it’s like he knows exactly what he’s doing. But you can’t tell exactly what he’s doing if you guard him. It’s like when people used to guard Alonzo Mourning in the post; he didn’t have such great post moves, but he was so awkward that people moved their faces away because they thought he’d throw an elbow, stuff like that.
“It’s sort of like that as a guard, but he’s not doing elbows. It’s just that the way his body moves and can contort, it’s just different. You know different when you see it. … But he has instinct, and he’s playing off his basketball IQ. He knows exactly what he’s doing every second he’s on the court. He was guarding post players, he was blocking shots — all of a sudden, it’s, ‘ Man, this kid’s going to be really good if he grows.’ ”
When the April recruiting period started, Chillious was ready, as was his boss. The Huskies coaching staff never missed any of Fultz’s AAU and high school games over the next two years.
Fultz continued to work with personal trainer Keith Williams, growing his game as he grew into his bigger frame. His breakout moments came while playing on the AAU circuit the summer before his junior year. Then, ev- erybody wanted in on the kid from Upper Marlboro, Md. Arizona. Kentucky. Kansas. The offers kept coming.
But Washington had been there from the start — and had been there on every step of the ascent, too. And the Huskies coaches were serious; they didn’t recruit any other point guards in the 2016 class.
They did spend plenty of time recruiting Fultz’s mom. It became clear, early on, that if her son was going to go to college across the country, she was going to have to be comfortable with it. And Fultz wanted her to be, too.
“She is almost like my heartbeat,” he said. “Without her, I don’t think I would have been able to do anything in my life.”
The work ethic Fultz exhibits now can be traced directly back to her. He grew up watching his mother work hard at her government job to provide for her two children, Markelle and his older sister Shauntese. She taught them what she thought she wished she had had more of during her own childhood. She praised them when they did well, got on them about academics when they deserved it and told them she loved them always. She saved enough money to send her son to a prestigious private school. And she made it to all of his games. “As a single mom, you just sacrifice to do what you need to do for your kids,” said Ebony, who is about 20 credits from earning her bachelor’s degree in business management. “I don’t really think about it too much. I just do it and get it done.”
SUPERSTARS HARD TO FIND
Outside of the fact everything he does on the court looks like it comes easy to him — or that he has been the recipient of countless interview requests — it’s hard to find the superstar on the team here. The 6- 4, 195- pound point guard remains grounded, despite his stature as one of the best freshmen in the country among those filling out an insanely talented freshman class. He’s not blowing off academics, either; he’s studying accounting because he wants to manage his own money as an adult.
Wednesday, Fultz scored a careerhigh 37 points, but what he cared most about were his eight assists and that the Huskies got the win vs. Colorado. The victory was vital for Washington ( 9- 9), a team that desperately needs to get hot if it has hopes of crashing the NCAA bubble come March. It’s January, but making the NCAA tournament appears out of reach. Fultz might end up following in Ben Simmons’ footsteps: the second consecutive No. 1 draft pick whose team didn’t make the NCAA tournament.
Fultz is doing what he can to try to avoid that, averaging 23.1 points, 6.2 assists, 5.8 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.4 blocks per game.
“He’s an unassuming potential superstar that will assume any role you tell him,” Chillious said. “That’s the best part about him. His teammates see that. … If all of us walk out of the gym and come back five minutes later, he’ll still be there, still goofing off and shooting trick shots.”
And if he’s not in the gym, he’s likely playing the role of a team mom in the apartment- style on- campus housing he shares with teammates. It’s a running joke, but Fultz is a big believer in the idea that nothing good happens after midnight.
One Saturday night this fall, while the team was together to watch a Washington football game, Fultz left in the third quarter of a blowout. His teammates began to rag on him, and he reminded them he expected them home by midnight.
Curious, Chillious looked at Snapchat to see where Fultz had gone off to. The gym — to work on his trick shots.