They should be panicking Fultz is looking more and more like a blown pick. All that tanking and all those picks, you're bound to miss on one of them. Of course, with Fultz the signs were there his only college year when he vanished for half the year, and could not play his team,which good college players can, into the NCAA March Madness. They drank the Kool-aid and got on the hype train. People did here, too, it happens, no one is right all the time.
I don't root for Philly in any way, nor do I want them to right the ship. I recall them ganging on up on Bird. While, I really respected those Philly teams, I do not respect the new team. Embiid and Simmons are crybabies, and hard for an old school like me to like.
yeah but this would be the 2nd one. People forget that Okafor was a bust too.
2017: Markelle Fultz (#1)
2016: Ben Simmons (#1)
2015: Jahlil Okafor (#3)
2014: Joel Embiid (#3)
2013: Nerlens Noel (#6)
Having picks this high for 5 consecutive years is astonishing. If Fultz ends up being a huge whiff, Philly should be embarrassed by what they have to show their tanking. Yes they have a franchise cornerstone in Embiid and a future all star in Simmons, but this team could have been a juggernaut for a decade
To be fair, Noel was not their own pick. They traded Holiday for him, so they really only had picks that high for 4 years ending up with 3, 3, 1, 3 (remember they moved up for Fultz). It isn't as rare as you might think landing top 5 picks for 4 straight years. I mean the Cavs ended up with 4, 1, 4, 1 (they also landed Irving with a pick they acquired). Minnesota had a stretch where they went 6, 7, 3, 5/6 (same draft), 4, 2. How about this Chicago stretch starting with Brand and ending with Rose - 1, 4/7 (same draft), 2, 7, 3, 2, 9, 1. The Kings haven't not had a top 10 pick since 2008 and have had 5 top 5 picks in that time. The Lakers just came off of 3 consecutive picks at #2 and were at 7 the draft before that (and were 10 this past season though that went to Philly). I mean even the Thunder who got every pick right went 2, 4, 3 in consecutive seasons (I get that is only 3 years, but again they got every pick right and got a MVP at their spot in 3 straight years, which has basically never happened before).