It's actually the first time I've mentioned it, and it was directly related to someone saying that I was saying conspiracy theories. I wanted to cite that I'm not some conspiracy nut and I am actually looking at data and analyzing it like I would do at work. Yes, being an engineer doesn't mean that I can say for certainty that the Sixers are lying, but maybe I'm seeing something that you aren't seeing: A pattern of deceit and incompetence. It's absolutely absurd for you to believe that your personal profession doesn't give you any advantage over others in specific areas:
The lawyer would be better suited to evaluate a contract or legal dispute.
The mathematician would be better suited to go in depth into the statistical analysis.
The doctor would be better suited to give a prognosis based on visual injury inspection (Hayward).
The engineer would be better suited to solve an unexplainable problem through deduction and analysis of past indicators.
Citing your experience is important when making a statement that may be controversial. For example if I told you Hayward's injury looked like it would be healed in 4 months, would you feel better, worse, or neutral if I also told you that I'm head of surgery at Johns Hopkins?
So we have a problem:
Markelle Fultz is playing injured, is playing bad, and his agent is changing the story.
I broke these down 1 by 1:
1) Markelle Fultz is playing injured.
Facts:
a) Okafor was cited needing 6 weeks recovery time, it took 6 months.
b) They shut down Simmons for 1 year because he had a foot fracture during practice.
ESPN's Jeff Goodman (h/t ESPN.com's Marc Stein) reported prior to the surgery that Simmons was expected to miss three months with a return date in December or January.
c) Embiid -- well you know this story. You'd think the amount the guy sat out, they rebuilt his entire body from scratch.
Conclusion: The Sixers do not take chances with their stars and are not afraid to shut down a rookie. Why would he be playing? Most likely answer: He is either not injured or it isn't significant.
2) Fultz is playing bad.
Facts:
a) Out of all of the top (5?) prospects, Fultz had the worst college record:
Fultz (9-22)
Ball (31-5)
Tatum (28-9)
Jackson (31-5)
Fox (32-6)
b) After we got the #1 pick, I watched a lot of his games in college, a lot of highlights, etc and I noticed a trend: He played hero ball and disappeared a lot. He was very successful in ISO situations and what I like to call Pick and Roll without the roll, but he did it against bad college players and didn't make his teammates better and it was evident in the standings. For example, do you really believe that if Michael Jordan was on that team it would have finished 9-22?
c) He had bad performances in both the Celtics and Sixers workouts. We all saw the 76ers clip where he missed pretty much every single shot, unguarded. Was he injured then, too?
d) His plus minus is -6.6. His VORP and win shares are also negative. He is hurting his team eveyr time he's on the court.
Conclusion: He doesn't look NBA ready yet. He needs more development to understand how to play team ball.
3) His agent keeps changing the story:
a) His agent posts that he can't lift his arm and fluid is being drained from his arm. We have proof that he did raise his arm (I posted a picture). Fultz retweets this.
b) Fultz later deletes the tweet
c) Now his agent posts that it's actually a cortisone shot (fluid going in).
Conclusion: His agent either doesn't understand what is being done for his STAR player (what!?), or he's just doing damage control. (I think the latter is more believable given Fultz retweeted the incorrect information. You'd think he'd know what's happening to his own shoulder, no?).
So that's it:
1) He's not injured (or it's not serious)
2) He's not NBA ready
3) His agent is doing damage control.
Is it really that hard to believe that they're giving him reps against the opposing team's bench players to make him look good and sell a few jerseys, it failed, now they're doing damage control? He needs d league development, in my opinion. My take seems to be the correct one and not the conspiracy theory.