Fultz proves to be a willing student in his first practice
CAMDEN, N.J. » Darryl Reynolds insists he’d never surrendered his plans to be an NBA player. Just the same last week, he was satisfied to keep it at a distance of 6,900 miles.
Reynolds is the 6-9 forward from Villanova by way of Lower Merion High, and Thursday, there he was, working out with the Sixers’ summer team. By next week, he is expected to be on the roster as the Sixers play in the Utah Jazz Summer League, and later when they play in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.
Considering where he was two days earlier, that already was a substantial professional leap.
“To be honest, I was in Dubai,” Reynolds revealed after the workout Thursday. “And it was about 12 o’clock over there, and I was about to go to bed. And my agent called and said, ‘You need to get back … ASAP.’ I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ So I got on a flight, got here yesterday for a practice, then found out I would be here for the entire camp.”
Reynolds showed enough at Villanova, where he started as a senior for a team that did not lose consecutive games, to rate a tryout for the Sixers. He did enough in that tryout, it seems, for the Sixers to have demanded another look. And whatever he did Wednesday was enough for the Sixers to include him on a 14man summer roster.
Though that roster likely will be twisted at some point, Reynolds was pronounced effective Thursday by 76ers assistant coach Billy Lange, who will coach the summer teams. That Lange, a former assistant to Jay Wright, helped recruit Reynolds to Villanova likely added a helpful familiarity.
“He didn’t know he was coming until about 48 hours ago,”
Lange said. “But here’s the good thing about a Villanova kid: They know how to work. Darryl knows how to play when he’s not the guy who is going to see the ball all the time. So he fits in great with a group like this.”
Whether that translates into Reynolds helping the 76ers in the fall is in question. But he was willing to back-track that 6,900 miles for the chance. The Philadelphia native was in the United Arab Emirates not for an overseas playing opportunity, but as something of a teacher.
“It was basketball-related,” he said. “They are trying to build up their basketball program over there for the kids. So I was blessed to be a part of that over there. But I came back for this.”
The workout Thursday, the first of a three-day minicamp, was observed by Brett Brown. On an adjacent court, Sixers’ pillars Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Robert Covington, Jahlil Okafor and Nik Stauskas, among possible others, were seen working out.
“This was the first day of kind of getting up and down, and trying to grasp the concepts at the same time,” said Reynolds, who played a year at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts between his Lower Merion and Villanova stints. “It was a teaching day in many ways. But it was very competitive.”
Reynolds, who made six starts for the 2016 NCAA champion Wildcats as a junior before averaging 4.5 points as a shot-blocking specialist as a senior, is used to being tested.
“This means a lot,” he said. “This was the one team I worked out for at their site. And being from Philly, this is huge. But it is not something I can really focus on. I don’t want to get caught up in that right now. I just want to focus on grasping these concepts and making sure I am playing the way they want me to play.
“I just want to focus on what the staff wants me to do, and not focus on the idea of getting the shot.”
In addition to the Sixers audition, Reynolds had pro-daystyle tryouts in Philadelphia for, among other teams, the Grizzlies. The Sixers, though, were the only team to respond with an offer … inconvenient as it turned out to be.
“They want me to play hard,” he said. “They want summer league to be competitive. It’s Philly basketball. You know how it is. It’s gritty. It’s tough. And they want guys who want to embrace that. And I want to make sure to show them that I am one of those guys for the most part.”
He began to show that by hustling from the Middle East to South Jersey on short notice. That’s because he never really surrendered the NBA dream.
“No, no, no,” he said. So he knew the opportunity would come? “Very much so.”
*** NOTES » Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Alex Poythress, both of whom finished last season with the Sixers, are on the summer league roster … Larry Drew II, who played 12 games and started once for the 2014-2015 Sixers, is in camp after spending last season with the Sioux Falls Skyforce in the newly-dubbed G-League … Embiid and Covington, who both ended last season on the injured list with knee troubles, were seen working out relatively hard in the period of the camp open to the press. Neither showed any lingering effects of surgery … Other than Luwawu-Cabarrot, no veterans were made available to the media … Philadelphia’s Brandon Austin, who played in high school at Imhotep Charter but was released from both Providence and Oregon following alleged sexual misconduct, is on the summer roster. The 6-7 Austin denied the accusations and was not charged with a crime. He played professionally last season in Canada … The three-day camp continues Friday and Saturday and is not open to the public.