Last summer, the Philadelphia 76ers made a trade with the Boston Celtics to select the first player in the 2017 NBA draft. With so many talented young players to choose from, the Sixers selected Markelle Fultz from the University of Washington.
Fultz was widely considered to be one of the top three prospects coming into the NBA. In his lone season with the Washington Huskies, the 6’4″ guard lit-up the Pac-12 with a 23 points per game scoring average.
Philadelphia saw Markelle Fultz as the final piece to go along with their young talented center, Joel Embiid, and 6’10” point guard from LSU, Ben Simmons. The Sixers’ have a team motto called “Trust the Process”. The team has purposefully lost the most games in the NBA for several seasons in hopes that they could put together a winner by drafting #1 in recent seasons.
Fultz was expected to be the guy who could hit the open shots and fly up and down the court with Ben Simmons. The scouting reports called Fultz the most talented pure shooter in last summer’s draft.
What could possibly go wrong?
Markelle Fultz, the #1 overall pick in the NBA last season, has developed an extremely rare case of the shooting yips. His problem is very much like a golfer who, for no specific reason, cannot putt the ball with a consistent motion. The golfer’s putting motion, normally very smooth, will become somewhat jerky and cause a lot of ugly misses from short range.
Markelle Fultz’s shooting woes are so bad that isn’t getting any playing time late in the season and in the NBA playoffs. He’s that bad right now.
There are a variety of stories circulating around the league as to what has happened to Fultz’ golden shooting touch before embarking on his rookie season in the NBA.
As you can tell by the photo at the top of this story, Fultz’ shooting position isn’t exactly ideal. The ball is sitting in his right hand with a slight tilt to the left with the ball nearly at eye level (easy to block the shot).
Some say that Fultz was being coached to change his shooting style by one of the Sixers’ staff after being drafted. Others say that no one from the team has counseled him to change his shooting style. Why would you want to mess with one of the best scoring guards in college basketball?
As a pretty good shooter myself (who also wore the #20 in high school like Fultz), I would like to offer Markelle a few easy tips on regaining his shooting touch.
- Plant your feet before going up straight to attempt the shot
- Square your shoulders toward the basket before releasing the ball
- Keep your head up and eyes on the bucket
- Follow through completely and “see” the ball going into the hoop.
- Repeat from all distances and angles on the court
OK, my basketball shooting remedy for Markelle Fultz isn’t exactly that a big secret (it worked well enough for me), but basketball players’ shooting styles are a lot like golfers’ unique swings. Silky smooth PGA golfer Ernie Els and herky-jerky swinging Jim Furyk are both major golf champions and Hall-of-Famers. They swing the golf club as differently as night and day. Through consistency and repetition, though, each is comfortable and able to reliably repeat their golf swings under incredible pressure.
Exceptional basketball shooters do certain things consistently (see #1 – 4 above), but their shooting styles vary, too. Larry Bird had a relatively high release point (because he didn’t jump very high when shooting) while Stephen Curry releases the ball from a similar shooting position as Fultz does. You can’t argue with their ability to hit the key shots under pressure. Countless hours of practice helped, but a shooter must adhere to some fundamentals to have consistent results.
Markelle Fultz would do well to watch some film of his successful college playing days. Go back to the basics and get comfortable and confident again. Practice the basics and envision success again. Golfers often get help from a sports psychiatrist. Do it now.
Philly’s vocal fans will welcome Markelle Fultz back to the line-up next season if he gets back to the basics and gets his confidence back.
Let’s hope he does.
Trust the shooter’s process, Markelle!