Brett Brown no longer can ignore the obvious.
The Philadelphia 76ers have played most of the season without No. 1 overall draft pick Markelle Fultz, who suffered a shoulder injury that appears to have irrevocably broken his jump shot.
Even as the Washington product continues to work his way back from the injury, his head coach acknowledged Sunday that he currently can’t shoot.
First, here’s what Fultz’s jump shot looked like during Sunday’s practice:
Yikes. That doesn’t look pretty.
And Brown noted that Fultz still is quite a ways away from coming back.
“I think what he needs to be is able to shoot a basketball,” Brown said, per Philly Voice’s Kyle Neubeck. “I don’t know what percent we’re going to apply that comment, but he needs to feel he can go and shoot a basketball. To just render it that the free throw is pretty good, and it is, and to only go that far without talking about some of the other pieces, is not what we are looking at, and I know he isn’t looking at that.”
Well, that doesn’t sound good.
The 76ers moved up to draft Fultz in a trade with the Boston Celtics, believing the star guard would be the final piece to put around Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Dario Saric.
While it hasn’t worked out so far, there still is time for Fultz, who is 19, but first, he must fix his now broken shot.
