Markelle Fultz Updates Thread

[Ruzious]

Like Dave Steele said on the closing moments against Wash: "A signature play for Markelle Fultz".

Great anticipation on that play, and then his length and athleticism took over. One of the best defensive plays I've seen in the NBA this season - and then converting it to a basically game-clinching transition bucket.

I thought it was actually just a really bad decision from Beal. Washington was only down three and had plenty of time. He had turned the corner on Vucevic and seemed to have a relatively easy layup, but opted to kick it out for a three-point attempt instead. He left his feet and Fultz did what any competent defender should've done by jumping the passing lane. I thought the most impressive aspect of the play was how Fultz shrugged off Thomas and Bertans en route to the finish.

I don't really want to take anything away from Fultz, but the circumstances of the game are what made the play so important. We honestly see more impressive defensive plays from MCW and Isaac on a nightly basis.

C'mon, Thomas and Bertans couldn't stop the average YMCA player from scoring in transition - maybe YWCA, tbh.

[Knightro]

Speaking of transition...

Markelle Fultz has been one of the best players in the league this season in transition.

Fultz is currently averaging 1.46 points per possession in transition, putting him in the 93rd percentile among all NBA players.

He's 13-18 shooting in transition and has drawn fouls on 33.3% of all transition possessions (2nd best in the NBA with players with at least 20 transition opportunities).

[swarlesbarkley]

Fultz looks like he takes out all of his 76ers frustration every time he dunks. I love it.

[J-Mezzy]

Speaking of transition...

Markelle Fultz has been one of the best players in the league this season in transition.

Fultz is currently averaging 1.46 points per possession in transition, putting him in the 93rd percentile among all NBA players.

He's 13-18 shooting in transition and has drawn fouls on 33.3% of all transition possessions (2nd best in the NBA with players with at least 20 transition opportunities).

I think our team is better suited for transition basketball. We have long athletes and one of the best transition guards in the league.

Halfcourt offense exposes our weaknesses when matched up vs a good defense

[Xatticus]

Speaking of transition...

Markelle Fultz has been one of the best players in the league this season in transition.

Fultz is currently averaging 1.46 points per possession in transition, putting him in the 93rd percentile among all NBA players.

He's 13-18 shooting in transition and has drawn fouls on 33.3% of all transition possessions (2nd best in the NBA with players with at least 20 transition opportunities).

I think our team is better suited for transition basketball. We have long athletes and one of the best transition guards in the league.

Halfcourt offense exposes our weaknesses when matched up vs a good defense

I don't know that the team is, but Fultz certainly is. It's really the only value we are getting from him at the offensive end. I don't expect that we will see a whole lot of it while Vucevic is on the floor though. I'd like to see Fultz get aggressive in positioning for outlets. If he is ahead of the play, he often just runs up the floor, but I want him presenting himself to the rebounder at every opportunity. I think Clifford ultimately figures things out and I expect he will figure this out sooner than later, but we get so many good opportunities early in the shot clock when Fultz grabs the ball and pushes it aggressively before the defense can get set.

[ezzzp]

Speaking of transition...

Markelle Fultz has been one of the best players in the league this season in transition.

Fultz is currently averaging 1.46 points per possession in transition, putting him in the 93rd percentile among all NBA players.

He's 13-18 shooting in transition and has drawn fouls on 33.3% of all transition possessions (2nd best in the NBA with players with at least 20 transition opportunities).

I think our team is better suited for transition basketball. We have long athletes and one of the best transition guards in the league.

Halfcourt offense exposes our weaknesses when matched up vs a good defense

Clifford wants to push the pace. He says it all the time.

Fultz and MCW's do a good job of doing that, DJ not so much. Fultz in particular is excellent, top 93d percentile in the NBA in transition; 1.46 ppp / 77.8 eFG%.

JI, Gordon and Aminu do grab and go and try to push pace, but unfortunately all three have been really bad turnover machines in transition this season: Gordon 18.5 TOV%, Isaac 20.7 TOV% and Aminu 23.4 TOV%.

JI was good in transition last year, top 86.7 percentile in the NBA with only a 7.8 TOV%. I think he can definitely play in transition.

Gordon, on the other hand, has been pretty bad in transition his entire career. He just doesn't make good decisions in transition, and offensive fouls in that play are a nightly occurrence. He's never exceeded the lower 44th percentile of the NBA in 6 years. Same with Aminu...not a good transition player.

Vucevic's numbers aren't good in transition this season, but he has been good in the past. Last year Vucevic was in the top 78.7 percentile of NBA in transition; 1.26 ppp / 66.7 eFG%...and the year before he was also very good. He's a very good defensive rebounder and gets a good amount of deflections - both of which leads to transition play. He makes smart passes off those rebounds and now his 3PT shooting is big threat as a trailer in transition.

Fournier and Ross are so so...both have been middle of the pack in transition play for the most part. Though Fournier was in top 90th percentile in transition under Skiles, and Ross was better at in Toronto...so both have the capacity.

[Knightro]

Clifford wants to push the pace. He says it all the time.

Every coach in the history of basketball talks about pushing the pace and taking advantage of the opponents in transition.

Unfortunately that doesn’t make it true

Clifford’s head coaching history obviously paints a different picture when it comes to pace.

Charlotte
21st
20th
17th
19th
8th

Orlando
25th
30th

4 of 7 years in the bottom third. 6 of 7 years in the bottom half.

[swarlesbarkley]

Clifford wants to push the pace. He says it all the time.

Every coach in the history of basketball talks about pushing the pace and taking advantage of the opponents in transition.

Unfortunately that doesn’t make it true

Clifford’s head coaching history obviously paints a different picture when it comes to pace.

Charlotte
21st
20th
17th
19th
8th

Orlando
25th
30th

4 of 7 years in the bottom third. 6 of 7 years in the bottom half.

I wish Cliff had it in him to change game plans from game to game. We should probably be pushing the pace against top 10 defenses in the half court and then run our offense in the half court against the bottom 10 defenses. Instead we kinda get the same thing every game - right down to the substitutions at the exact minute.

[ezzzp]

Clifford wants to push the pace. He says it all the time.

Every coach in the history of basketball talks about pushing the pace and taking advantage of the opponents in transition.

Unfortunately that doesn’t make it true

Clifford’s head coaching history obviously paints a different picture when it comes to pace.

Charlotte
21st
20th
17th
19th
8th

Orlando
25th
30th

4 of 7 years in the bottom third. 6 of 7 years in the bottom half.

You do know that he's talking about pushing the pace within the Magic context, not trying to be the fastest team in the league

When he talks about pushing the pace, he's talking about doing it within the scope of the system principles. Once the stop is made, to attack with purpose and get into offense quick. He's not talking about sacrificing the defensive end/rebounding by having players leak out just so that he can point to pace rank to claim his team is playing faster. Going fast doesn't mean anything if you suck. Luckily he's a good enough coach to know that.

[basketballRob]

Markelle could end up with better numbers across the board than James Harden at 21.

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

[KillMonger]

You can clearly tell that Markelle wants to run, most of the time he gets the ball he starts flying......problem is no one else is running with the same purpose, we have a pacing issue that doesn't make sense with the athletes we have unless it's by design.

[ezzzp]

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[OrlandoNed]

You can clearly tell that Markelle wants to run, most of the time he gets the ball he starts flying......problem is no one else is running with the same purpose, we have a pacing issue that doesn't make sense with the athletes we have unless it's by design.

Either we're too blind to realize slogging away with our athletes is stupid or we're being willfully ignorant.

[swarlesbarkley]

You can clearly tell that Markelle wants to run, most of the time he gets the ball he starts flying......problem is no one else is running with the same purpose, we have a pacing issue that doesn't make sense with the athletes we have unless it's by design.

Either we're too blind to realize slogging away with our athletes is stupid or we're being willfully ignorant.

I think we have a BBIQ problem with our athletes running.

Evan will dribble into 4 defenders.
AG will most likely get an offensive charge.
JI can't be trusted with his dribble yet.
Vuc is too slow.

The only guys who can be trusted to run are Fultz and Ross. AG and JI could be trusted if they are only used for alley oops.

That being said, I would like us to push the pace more against great defensive teams.

[Knightro]

Long article on Fultz and where he's at 13 games into the season.

A lot of positive, encouraging words with enough reserved nature on where he's still falling short.

https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2019/11/19/20971117/markelle-fultz-orlando-magic-highlights-stats-shooting

[Popsicle1228]

One thing that that has surprised me about Fultz is the level of confidence he seems to play with. I heard so many criticize him for the "YIPS" I expected him to play more reluctant and unsure of himself. For example, I anticipated that he would struggle more from the free throw line because I expected his injury to have more of an impact on his confidence. Likewise I expected the amount of criticism he received to have an impact on his free throw shooting, decision making, and shooting in general. I mean Nick Anderson as a veteran missed 4 free throws in the 95 finals, and it impacted his free throw shooting for the rest of his career.

Admittedly Fultz has not shot well from three, but he still puts them up. He does hesitate on occasion, but when he hesitates he is generally looking for a more efficient shot for himself or a better shot for another player. I expected he may need some early season coddling, but I can see the chip on his shoulder, and I love it!

[swarlesbarkley]

One thing that that has surprised me about Fultz is the level of confidence he seems to play with. I heard so many criticize him for the "YIPS" I expected him to play more reluctant and unsure of himself. For example, I anticipated that he would struggle more from the free throw line because I expected his injury to have more of an impact on his confidence. Likewise I expected the amount of criticism he received to have an impact on his free throw shooting, decision making, and shooting in general. I mean Nick Anderson as a veteran missed 4 free throws in the 95 finals, and it impacted his free throw shooting for the rest of his career.

Admittedly Fultz has not shot well from three, but he still puts them up. He does hesitate on occasion, but when he hesitates he is generally looking for a more efficient shot for himself or a better shot for another player. I expected he may need some early season coddling, but I can see the chip on his shoulder, and I love it!

I think the only confidence issue Fultz had was that he couldn't trust his shoulder to not have pain when he'd shoot once the TOS started to effect his shot. I don't think he had the yips at all like the stage was too big in Philly or he couldn't handle the pressure of being a #1 pick.

[ezzzp]

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[nolang1]

One thing that that has surprised me about Fultz is the level of confidence he seems to play with. I heard so many criticize him for the "YIPS" I expected him to play more reluctant and unsure of himself. For example, I anticipated that he would struggle more from the free throw line because I expected his injury to have more of an impact on his confidence. Likewise I expected the amount of criticism he received to have an impact on his free throw shooting, decision making, and shooting in general. I mean Nick Anderson as a veteran missed 4 free throws in the 95 finals, and it impacted his free throw shooting for the rest of his career.

Admittedly Fultz has not shot well from three, but he still puts them up. He does hesitate on occasion, but when he hesitates he is generally looking for a more efficient shot for himself or a better shot for another player. I expected he may need some early season coddling, but I can see the chip on his shoulder, and I love it!

I think the only confidence issue Fultz had was that he couldn't trust his shoulder to not have pain when he'd shoot once the TOS started to effect his shot. I don't think he had the yips at all like the stage was too big in Philly or he couldn't handle the pressure of being a #1 pick.

Yeah if it's only gonna hurt only once in every 5 times or whatever, that's probably gonna mess with you even more because you don't know which time will be the one. And it probably wasn't even 'pain' as much as feeling weird and tingly, which was basically the source of all the intrigue surrounding his injury when it was just misdiagnosed - of course he'd give it a go if it wasn't causing him extreme pain because he didn't want to be seen as quitting on his team.

[ezzzp]

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