It has somehow gone under the radar that the No. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft hasn’t played a basketball game in more than a month. Markelle Fultz has been sidelined with a shoulder injury since the end of October, and there hasn’t seemed to be any concrete word on when he’ll be able to play basketball again.
The Sixers did provide something of an update on Fultz on Wednesday, but it still wasn’t much. Head coach Brett Brown announced that Fultz is back with the team after heading to Kentucky to rehabilitate his shoulder, but in a piece of bad news, Fultz’s involvement in basketball activity was “minimal.”
Markelle Fultz is back from Kentucky and with the Sixers. Brett Brown said his basketball activity was "minimal" on Wednesday. "We are just happy to have him back. I felt like I haven't seen him in a long time," Brown said.
— Jessica Camerato (@JessicaCamerato) December 6, 2017
This is the biggest update we’ve had in some time that did not involve Fultz confirming he still shoots with his right hand. Sure, that’s a reassuring thing, as Fultz is a potentially really good basketball player who has been unable to shake a series of lingering health issues.
But at the same time, it’s really weird that there still seems to be no timetable for when the perceived top player in the last draft is going to be able to suit up due to a mysterious shoulder injury that seemingly came from changing the way he shot the ball and Monstar’d his talent away from him. It’s obviously up to the Sixers whether they want to give people an update on Fultz’s status, but with each passing day their reluctance on saying anything gets more and more strange.
