Markelle Fultz Is Back And Looking Like He Had Never Been Away

It is striking quite how many players have been under contract to the Orlando Magic this season that have never played a minute for them.

Until they were waived at the trade deadline, reserve guards E’Twaun Moore and Michael Carter-Williams were two of them, both injured before the season’s opening night. P.J. Dozier came and went without appearing in a game, Bol Bol is under contract but is out for the season with injury, and of course, the far more significant pairing of Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz have had serious knee injuries of their own.

Infamously, Fultz’s career to date has largely been a tale of absence. It went wrong almost immediately after being drafted first overall in the 2017 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers; after managing only 14 games in his rookie campaign, his sophomore campaign’s total of 19 was barely any better. Fultz, notoriously, was plagued by a mystery affliction that saw him lose his shot, confidence and all-around game, one which took a long time to diagnose.

Eventually, the root cause was found, and Fultz’s longest run of game time by far in his career to date came in the 2019-20 season, his first in Orlando. He appeared in a team-high 72 games with 60 starts, all but one game short of a full season of work, and finally, he was able to get his NBA career off the snide. He was pretty good, too. But then, it happened again – only eight games into last season, Fultz tore his ACL, and until last night, he had not played since.

In total, of the 370 regular season games Fultz could have played in in his career to date, he had played only 113, less than a third. The fact that he has returned to action, then, is legitimately newsworthy. And notwithstanding the usual caveats about sample size, he looked remarkably spry in his first game back, too.

Although he has been back in practice since December, there usually follows a period of rust after a knee ligament tear when it comes to achieving the full range of movement, as well as the mental block that comes from the memory of what happened before. Yet in this 16 minute sample size, Fultz seems already beyond those hurdles.

On display were the combination of size, burst and agility that made Fultz such a special athletic specimen to begin with. The breakdown of his three-point stroke is well documented, but that ability to create space with the speed and the handle, before draining an unblockable mid-ranger (which the form never really left him on), rekindles the John Wall vibes that made him the first overall pick nearly five years ago. It has not happened for him yet, given all the misfortune and setbacks, but the past does not dictate the future.

Indeed, it was because of the future that the Magic sought and kept him. After his third season but before his ACL injury, the Magic extended Fultz, giving him a three year, $50 million extension. The player that Fultz showed he could be during that third-year burst was on his way to meriting that paycheck, a dynamic ball-handler with an effortless transition game who, if he could ever get back the consistent outside range, could be an excellent NBA scorer. The bad luck of the subsequent ACL tear, unrelated to his previous injury, could not be legislated for.

In Fultz’s absence, the Magic did pick up some extra guards. Most notably, they drafted Jalen Suggs high in the first round of the 2021 Draft, and had picked up R.J. Hampton at the February 2021 trade deadline, only a few short months after selecting Cole Anthony in the draft as well. Despite the extension to Fultz, they could not – and did not – put all their eggs in his fragile basket.

None of those additions, though, preclude a return to the front of the team for Fultz. Nothing during this water-treading Magic season – save for perhaps the emergence of Franz Wagner and his outside chance of winning Rookie of the Year – has shut the door on anything else. On this team that keeps getting deeper with prospects but with none yet to truly emerge, it is all still up for grabs. And after all the bad luck in his career to date, the return of Fultz to good health and good play could be the bright spot that the Magic’s season needs.