Throwback Scouting Report: Markelle Fultz

A look back at the top pick in the 2017 NBA Draft and what could have been

“Those who don’t learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”

Last summer, we started a small series called Retro Scouting Reports. We’re going to continue it this summer with a few sporadic videos covering former draft prospects.

The idea was simple: look back at some fascinating prospects of the last several years to get a feel for what they looked like at the time of the draft. It’s an exercise rooted in the desire to learn from past mistakes or triumphs of the scouting process. Maybe, just maybe, by looking back at what happened in the past we can learn something for the future.

The quote above is on the top of the U.S. History syllabus I hand out to my students. It’s an important reminder of why we look back and study what happened before us. Embedded within that statement is an inherent desire to improve, to be better than we were in the past. Chasing greatness as a scout and talent evaluator means being brutally honest with your prior misfires and being willing to study them once again.

Markelle Fultz was the number one player on our board in 2017, and for good reason. He was a big 6’5” point guard who was dazzling in transition, an above-average passer, showed three-level scoring potential, and had enough athleticism to become an impactful defender. There were very few boxes that didn’t get checked.

Fultz’s career became slightly derailed by thoracic nerve injuries which hampered his shooting ability altogether. Constant tweaks to his form, confidence issues and natural injuries took away that three-level scoring potential and turned him into a facilitating, finishing, slashing guard.

Such a role is not common for a former top pick, which is why Fultz has seen such a precipitous decline in terms of perception.

In looking back purely at the film, Fultz would likely rank in a tier somewhere alongside Ja Morant, Darius Garland and RJ Barrett among recent prospects. Not quite dynamic enough in isolations to be a full top option, Fultz jumps off the page to us more as an elite second option next to a big wing or a post player. The situation set up in Philadelphia — with a young Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons — was perfect for how we saw his upside.

Instead of trying to take away major lessons from Fultz, we saw this as an opportunity to reinforce one of our favorite points to make: the lion’s share of what these players turn into happens after draft night, not before. Be it injuries, poor development or just a rough situation in the pros, these guys can see their careers change course — and change course quickly.

Fultz is a great reminder that no matter how good a prospect is — or how certain you feel about their talent level ahead of the draft — there are always factors that can interrupt the process. Jabari Parker (another guy we may detail this summer) had a similar decline due to injuries. Greg Oden went from potential superstar to unemployable in five years. There’s a lot that can happen to explain why a player doesn’t pan out the way scouts thought.

That doesn’t mean it’s always a scouting misfire or error. If there’s one lesson to take away from history with a guy like Fultz, it’s that there are always variables and circumstances that nobody can account for. Investing in human beings means inherent risk is involved — even for those who are the most talented.