Fultz worthy of buzz, if not of No. 1 title for Sixers?
The stories are many, the believers growing rapidly in number.
Markelle Fultz hadn’t even made varsity at DeMatha Catholic when University of Washington assistant coach Raphael Chillious first saw him as a 5-foot-9 soph in a junior varsity game and reported back that the kid played all positions. And well. He predicted that if Fultz grew some — OK, maybe a lot — he’d become not only an NBA player, but an All-Star.
As fate would have it, Fultz added inches the following spring and summer and spent the next two years turning himself into a top-shelf collegiate recruit. Along the way he showed work ethic, like the time he broke his right wrist in AAU basketball, and showed up to practice the next day handling the ball left-handed. And discipline, which he said was part and parcel of the karate lessons his mother had sent him to.
These stories have been told in recent months in national media outlets as the hype around Fultz has grown, along with his body. He was a 6-4 freshman point guard for the Huskies last season, one that he couldn’t finish due to chronic right knee pain. And yet here he is, the Sixers expected to announce Monday that they’d traded with the Celtics for the No. 1 overall pick, fully invested in making Fultz that selection as the latest piece of The Process.
For them, he has everything: Already an instinctual scorer with a huge, creative offensive upside, accuracy from distance, certainly the tools to defend and defend well. With a lot of coaching, of course.
For Fultz is a green basketball machine, probably a touch too green for even the Celtics (who still have that guy named Isaiah, too). They will still get a topnotch talent at No. 3, plus an extra top-round pick either next year (via the Lakers) or the following year (Sacramento).
Stretch the optimism a good deal and Sixers fans might see their young stars not treated like china dolls. Imagine Ben Simmons actually playing this season, and Joel Embiid playing more than every other game or so. The two of them can join with raw recruit Fultz in what would be the youngest and perhaps most entertaining core group in the league.
If the immediate idea of this years-old rebuilding program has been about rebuilding fan interest fast while eventually growing into a championship team, maybe The Process is finally due to start paying off.
The NHL’s lists of protected players for the Vegas Golden Knights’ expansion party was revealed Sunday, and showed the Flyers are aware that they have changes to make.
Among the players not protected were Michael Raffl and Matt Read. Rah.
While they weren’t the only veteran regulars not among the maximum seven forwards, three defenders and one goalie that general manager Ron Hextall chose to protect (first- and second-year pros such as Travis Konecny and Ivan Provorov are automatically exempt), Read and Raffl are symbolic of the mid-line forwards that simply haven’t performed up to financial expectations here.
Raffl earned a three-year, $7.05 million contract after scoring 21 goals in 62 games in 2014-15. Since then, he’s managed 21 goals in 134 games, despite frequently lining up on Claude Giroux’s top line.
Read, a diligent defensive player, also scored 57 goals and 111 points over 196 games during his first three seasons. That earned him a 4-year, $14.5 million deal. In three seasons since, he scored 29 goals and 75 points in 222 games, losing a regular role for a while last season.
Raffl might have a chance to be claimed by the Golden Knights, unless there’s a trade option on the table between the teams, or Vegas GM George McPhee plans to take unprotected UFA Jordan Weal and try to sign him as his own.
Read simply hasn’t put up the numbers he did as a younger player and his effectiveness is spotty at best on both ends of the ice on too many nights.
For the Flyers, who have been trying hard to sign Weal, every effort has to be made to expedite the development of Konecny and college-promotee Mike Vecchione among other younger forwards. Old-guard grinders Chris VandeVelde, Boyd Gordon, etc. are on the outs, and unprotected Dale Weise and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare are slotted for fourth-line duty.
Read and Raffl, both under contract for one more season, are different stories altogether. They are best left to be given every chance to further their careers elsewhere.
There are positive spins and then there are desperate cries for help. But Sunday, after yet another honest but ultimately unworthy effort by his semi-major baseball team, Pete Mackanin ... well, he fell somewhere inbetween; kind of spinning sadly.
“Obviously, the numbers speak for themselves,” Mackanin said of his 22-46 Phillies, who this year performed the mini-miracle of really being out of the playoff race essentially before June. “The thing is, we’ve played a lot of these teams tough. We played these guys, and they’ve got a heck of a good team.”
“These guys” are the Arizona Diamondbacks, who completed a road sweep in baseball-poor South Philly with a come-from-behind 5-4 win in 10 innings Sunday.
So while over the long haul since late April it has become easy to see this is a Phillies team worthy of the title of League Worst, the sadder spin would be that they aren’t getting any better. They have lost 37 of 48 dating to April 28, they’ve also won only once in their last dirty dozen games. And yet...
“We played the Red Sox tough for four games, we played the Cubs tough ... we’ve played a lot of teams tough,” Mackanin maintained. “Good teams, like the Dodgers. We just fall short. There’s a little something missing.”
Yes there is. It’s called talent.
Certainly, as the admirably positive Mackanin has said time and time again this spring, these Phillies aren’t quite this bad.
How could anyone be this bad? They’re on a percentage pace that is behind what those aforementioned Process servers attained last basketball season.
All of this ultimately will fall on Mackanin’s shoulders, since he’s the one that signed up for this gig while the real talent continues (or hopefully continues) to develop in the minors. But on a positive note, you get the idea his shoulders might sag a bit from time to time, but won’t ever separate.