Markelle Fultz Is Expected To Be A Full Participant At Magic Training Camp

Teams around the NBA are gearing up for the start of training camp next week and with it comes the optimism and excitement of a new season.

In Orlando, the hope is to build off of last season’s surprising success in which Nikola Vucevic was an All-Star and the Magic made the playoffs in the East. For the most part, they decided to run it back this season, in hopes of building off of last year and making improvements in internal development. The biggest possible addition for the Magic is a player they picked up at the trade deadline last year in former No. 1 overall pick Markelle Fultz.

Fultz has battled a shoulder injury since he entered the league and his two years of struggles to get on the court and stay on the court have been well documented. This offseason, the Magic picked up his fourth-year option, indicating they have faith in him to make a recovery and play at some point soon, but we had yet to get any official word about his status for this upcoming season. That finally arrived on Wednesday, when team president Jeff Weltman said they expected Fultz to fully participate in practices once camp begins next week.

This is a bit of a surprise, simply because we hadn’t heard much about Fultz’s progress this summer. It seems to be good news for Fultz and the Magic as they desperately need some more help at the point guard position, at least in terms of providing quality depth. Fultz’s jump shot will be highly scrutinized (a video below for you to see for yourself), but it’s good to hear he’s going to be back playing basketball.

Whether he can regain the form that made him the consensus top pick two years ago remains to be seen, but for now he’s hopefully in a good place physically and mentally to get back on the court and produce for the Magic.