It’s a Friday night in Orlando, and Joel Embiid is at the free throw line, en route to another dominant performance. The reigning MVP is coming off one of the best games of his career three days earlier: a 41-point, 10-assist, seven-rebound masterpiece in a statement win over the Denver Nuggets. And he’s already up to nine points in this game, with 4:26 to play in the first quarter of this mid-January tilt between the Philadelphia 76ers and the up-and-coming Orlando Magic.

The substitution buzzer sounds after the ball swishes through the net, bringing Embiid to 10 points, and Markelle Fultz enters the game in place of Jalen Suggs, Orlando’s starting guard and one of the recent top-10 picks that make up the franchise’s exciting young core. As Fultz tucks his T-Mac-era throwback jersey into his shorts and takes a spot on the blocks, there isn’t a single mention on the local broadcast that Fultz is facing off against his former team. In fact, it doesn’t mention Fultz at all. Embiid sinks the second free throw, and Fultz brings the ball up the court going the other way. 

Almost seven years ago, the Sixers drafted Fultz no. 1, with the expectation that he’d be the final piece of their own young core. In a lot of ways, he was the culmination of the Process: After years of losing in the hopes of building a championship team, Philadelphia traded up two spots in the 2017 draft specifically for Fultz, passing on the likes of Jayson Tatum and Lonzo Ball because it thought the talented 19-year-old combo guard from the University of Washington could do a little bit of everything next to Embiid and Ben Simmons. But after one of the most confounding starts to a career in recent history, a trade, injuries, and plenty of ups and downs in between, Fultz has settled into his new life as a steady veteran for one of the league’s most promising young teams. 

Fultz is bigger and stronger now. He shed his trademark flattop for a sleeker cut, and the youthful exuberance that once coursed through his game has given way to a mature and measured approach. Fultz has lived several lives over his seven NBA seasons, but he’s still only 25 years old. “I think a lot of people forget that,” Fultz told me at the end of last season. “And I forget it as well. And at the same time, I feel like I’m older because I’ve been through so much.” 

Before his rookie season, Fultz’s shot abandoned him as he battled a mysterious, undiagnosed shoulder injury. As pressure and intrigue swirled around him and the peculiar hitch in his jumper, Fultz was limited to just 14 games in his first season. He was labeled a bust, a victim of the “yips.” After two disappointing seasons, the Sixers traded him to Orlando. Many in the basketball world wondered if Fultz would ever regain the form that made him such a prized prospect not even two years before. 

But Fultz has built himself back up into a different kind of cornerstone player. He is now a cherished leader and rotation regular who can start or come off the bench as needed. Against the Sixers in January, he finished with just seven points and three assists in 22 minutes, while Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, Philly’s new, young All-Star guard, each went for 30-plus in a 15-point win. But Fultz has the size and feel that every team could use in its backcourt. And last season he showed there’s still untapped potential, with averages of 14 points, 5.7 assists, and 3.9 rebounds across 60 games (all starts).

“He’s got a chance to continue to do special things in this league,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley says. 

Fultz has also become a sounding board for Orlando’s cadre of high draft picks—including Paolo Banchero, the no. 1 pick five years after Fultz.   

“It amazes me,” says Banchero. “Just from being a no. 1 pick and seeing what comes with it and just all the expectation and pressure, … I always try and give him his credit, man, because it’s not easy to do what he’s done and been through what he’s been through.”

Suggs, the no. 5 pick in the 2021 draft, says he can relate to Fultz after dealing with his own injuries and setbacks early in his NBA career: “Sometimes in life, you get dealt a situation like that, or things don’t go your way, and I felt him on that first-handed. Just see him now hoopin’ again, it’s fun to be around. I think that’s what I resonated most with is just kind of how he blocked out that noise and stuck with his people, kept working, and it all paid off.” 

Fultz may not become the face-of-the-franchise-type player many expected him to be, but after everything he’s gone through, he continues to establish a legacy that will be important for a generation of players coming behind him.

“I’ve been not ranked and had to work my way up to the top, and I’ve been the top player, no. 1 pick,” Fultz says. “I pride myself on just being one of those guys that’s never going to quit and never going to fold.”

As Fultz warmed up before his first NBA game, he knew something wasn’t right. 

“I already felt my shoulder, but our first game was in D.C., which is my hometown,” he recalls. “And me being who I am, I still put myself on the line for my team. I didn’t know any better. I’m young, just coming up, and wanted to play at home for the first time.” 

The regular-season debut of the no. 1 pick is always a much-hyped event, but Fultz’s first NBA game carried even more intrigue than usual. Questions surrounding his shooting form had intensified between the time the Sixers made him the first pick and the moment he set foot inside the Capital One Arena on October 18, 2017. Fultz was also dealing with a knee injury heading into the game, which coincidentally doubled as Simmons’s first regular-season game. (Simmons, the first pick in the 2016 draft, had missed his entire rookie season because of a foot injury.)

The changes to Fultz’s shot mechanics were evident. His release point had shifted. Videos of free throws he shot during the preseason circulated online, showing Fultz almost rushing through his motion and then seemingly pushing the ball off the side of his hand rather than flicking it at its apex. In an interview with The Ringer, Fultz attributed the changes to shoulder pain, while his coach, Brett Brown, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Fultz himself, not injuries, was to blame for his altered mechanics. “His heart is in the right place,” Brown said. “All by himself, he pivoted out over the summer and tried to make it better and tweak it. … We have a Team Markelle all around him to help him, and he’s gonna be just fine.”

But Fultz wasn’t fine. He scored 10 points in 18 minutes in his debut, a Sixers loss to the Wizards, but he remembers feeling off. “It was just like certain shots, my shoulder just was feeling tight,” he tells me. “And I didn’t feel normal. I felt a little bit of tightness.” In his first four games, he averaged six points in 19 minutes, shot 50 percent from the free throw line, and didn’t attempt a 3. 

“As a no. 1 pick, automatically, from the outside looking in, [you] have to come in and dominate,” says T.J. McConnell, Fultz’s teammate at the time. “And he played in a major city, and the fan base is as passionate as can be, and he just wasn’t healthy. That was quite clear.”

“I kind of knew my shoulder wasn’t right, but I just kept playing,” Fultz says. “I kept going out there. I kept putting myself on the line even though I knew I wasn’t 100 percent, but I still felt like I could contribute to my team. And then about four games in, my agent talked to me. He just asked me, ‘Kelle, everything OK?’ Because he can kind of see it, and I spoke to him, and that’s when he told me, ‘Kelle, we need to shut you down and figure out what’s going on.’”

That was the problem, though, for both Fultz and the Sixers: Nobody could figure out exactly what was going on. Sixers brass maintained that Fultz’s decision to change his shooting form led to the shoulder issues, while Fultz’s team refuted their claims. Amid the confusion, as the relationship between player and team deteriorated, Fultz was ruled out indefinitely.

Fultz remembers seeing several doctors, trying—unsuccessfully—to understand what was wrong with his shoulder. “They didn’t really know what it was,” he recalls. “I got MRIs, and that was probably the toughest part about it because I’m going to doctors, and they’re saying they don’t see anything, but me being who I am, I feel that I’m not right. And I know my body isn’t right. But when you hear the doctors saying that, it messes with your mind a little bit because it’s like I know something’s wrong, but they’re not saying anything is wrong.”

At one point, Fultz admits, he was just trying to shoot through the issues. 

“I’m going in the gym, getting up extra shots, trying to shoot it out and stuff like that and ended up finding out what I was doing was making it worse,” he says. “Because I’m pretty much just making my nerves worse. I’m steady working on it instead of getting the proper rest that I need and the treatment.”

In the meantime, the information vacuum around Fultz’s shoulder was filled by speculation and rumormongering. Fultz even remembers hearing a story that a motorcycle accident ruined his shot. “At one point, it got a little frustrating,” he says. “But none of it was true, so it was kind of laughable. And kind of like, I can’t believe everybody believes what they see on the internet.”

As Fultz and the Sixers continued to look for answers, many around him—including Fultz’s onetime trainer, Drew Hanlen—chalked Fultz’s struggles up to the yips and suggested nothing was physically wrong with his shoulder. Unlike the more outlandish rumors, these ones were harder for Fultz to brush off. 

“I think the toughest thing is hearing the mental issue part because I feel like I’m such a mentally strong person to be able to go through what I’m going through and be able to go out on the floor and still play in front of all these fans and not care about how I’m feeling,” he says. “I think that a lot of people got it mixed up as far as saying that I had mental issues and demons.” 

“It hurts to see people assassinating your child’s character, and you know for 100 percent fact they haven’t picked up the phone to call that person,” says Ebony Fultz, Markelle’s mother. “It was disheartening.”

The coverage of Fultz created a pressure cooker as he tried to return to the court. McConnell and a Sixers staffer remember one moment when media members were filming as Fultz put up shots after a team practice. Veteran guard JJ Redick defended Fultz, yelling, “The kid’s fucking 19,” imploring the onlookers to have patience.

“That was the time where it was really dark as far as I lost an outlet for myself,” Fultz says. “Basketball’s always been an outlet for me as far as when I have things off the court going on, I can always go play basketball, and it puts me at peace. And I lost that. I couldn’t just go on the court and shoot for hours just to let my mind free because I couldn’t do that the way I wanted. So it kind of became stressful, but I still found other ways. I would go in the gym and shoot left-handed. I would go in the gym, still shoot trick shots.”

Eventually, Fultz began to wonder if he would get back to the same level of performance again.

“There was definitely days where I thought, ‘Am I ever going to be able to shoot the same?’” Fultz says. “But my mindset wasn’t to quit. My mindset was like, ‘What can I do?’ I actually had moments of thinking, like, ‘All right, if this happens, I would just play left-handed. I’d work on my left hand extremely hard to make it the way I wanted it to be, but it was never an option of quitting. And I’d be lying to tell you if I didn’t have days where I actually thought about, like, giving up, but it didn’t last long. 

“I had those moments, and I was like, ‘What are you thinking, Kelle? You’re so gifted, you’re blessed with so many other things, and just because you can’t shoot doesn’t mean you can’t impact the game of basketball and impact winning.’”

The emotion in Lorenzo Romar’s voice is palpable as he talks about watching his former player. “I could easily get emotional and not be able to talk when I think about it,” Romar said during a phone conversation. 

Romar, who was the coach at Washington for 15 years, including during Fultz’s one season in 2016-17, is still hurt by the judgment he feels many passed on one of his former star pupils. “There was a physical breakdown that—physical injury that he had no control of and had to get through it and eventually got through it, and he is where he is today,” Romar explains. “I’ve been upset when I’ve heard public remarks, public commentary about things that have been said about him because they don’t know him. And they don’t know what he went through.”

By late March of his rookie season, Fultz was back on the floor, trying to find his way playing spot minutes off the bench. In the Sixers’ last game of the regular season, Fultz became the youngest player in NBA history to record a triple-double. 

But he didn’t play much in the 2018 playoffs, and the start to his second season did little to alleviate the concerns around his play. After starting the first 15 games, Fultz was benched. Hanlen tweeted, then later deleted, a comment that suggested he still wasn’t healthy. Brown pushed back in the press, telling reporters Fultz was healthy, adding, “There’s no conspiracy theory out there.”

Meanwhile, Fultz continued seeking out doctors to try to understand the pain in his shoulder. Eventually, one of them diagnosed him with thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition that affects the nerves between the neck and shoulder. TOS doesn’t always show up in MRIs, which is perhaps why it took Fultz so long to obtain a diagnosis. Even though Fultz had never heard of TOS, the clear medical determination brought peace of mind. 

“When I seen this specific doctor,” Fultz explains, “he was explaining all the things that I was feeling. And as he was explaining things, this is the first time I actually felt the relief of, like, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I feel.’”

While it’s not a common diagnosis in the NBA, Fultz isn’t the first basketball player to deal with TOS. Former point guard Ben Uzoh told Andscape in 2018 that he dealt with similar issues during his two-year NBA career. TOS is most common in MLB pitchers: Former flamethrowers Stephen Strasburg and Matt Harvey have undergone surgery to treat the issue. 

“I think another scariest part about it was hearing the [treatment] options,” Fultz says. “I heard about surgery and getting your first rib removed. That kind of scared me because it’s, ‘All right, I’m getting my first rib removed,’ but my first question was, ‘Does that guarantee that it goes away?’ And the answer to that was no. So that thing to me was kind of like, ‘All right, I’d rather try to rehab first.’ … So I just attacked that rehab, and I went to find the best people to rehab with, and it kind of went from there.”

Fultz didn’t know it yet, but by the time he received his diagnosis, he had already played his final game for the Sixers. In late 2018, he began treatment on his shoulder, and in February 2019, he was traded to the Magic. “I’d be lying if [I said] I didn’t feel sad,” Brown told The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. “I never really felt like I had the chance to coach him. I never really felt like the city got a chance to see him.”

Fultz remains popular with many former Sixers teammates, but his time in Philadelphia is still a tricky subject for many who were involved. Brown, Simmons, and former Sixers vice president of player personnel Marc Eversley all declined to comment for this story. Redick did not respond to a message to participate, and attempts to reach Bryan Colangelo were unsuccessful.

Despite the uneasiness surrounding his time with the Sixers, Fultz doesn’t blame the team for how things were handled.

“No, I’m thankful,” Fultz says. “Because I’ve learned so much through my experiences that I have there. I can’t be mad at them because they’re trying to do what’s best for their organization and feel like what they need to win a championship, so I’m not mad at all. I do think some things could have been handled better, but I’ve learned so much from those experiences: understanding how to carry myself, understanding how to be better for the organization, be better for my teammates, also how to push myself, also how to be adaptable to change for situations.”

Ebony feels the same way. “People probably could have handled things differently, yes, more maturely and diplomatically and professionally; they probably could have done that,” she says. But she doesn’t hold any ill will toward the Sixers, believing that everything happens for a reason. “’Cause what if Markelle had decided he was going to stay another year in college, and he didn’t declare for the draft, and then it was discovered while he was in college? What could have happened then? So I try to remain optimistic and show him how to remain on an optimistic side of things.” 

The entire process was transformative for the young guard. “I really found myself, and I realized that basketball is truly my happy place,” he says. He learned more about his body and the importance of giving himself a little extra grace when needed. 

“It’s OK to be sad,” he says. “It’s OK to have bad days. We’re all human. And once I realized that, nothing else really mattered to me. The only expectations that mattered were the ones I put on myself, and that’s when life became a lot easier.” 

Jeff Weltman and the Magic believed in Fultz. They held the no. 6 pick in the 2017 draft and scouted him coming out of Washington. And despite everything that had gone wrong in Philly, they were confident that Fultz could thrive in the right system. 

“Everything that we knew about Markelle was positive, and even beyond that, I would say kind of exceptional,” says Weltman, the Magic’s president of basketball operations since 2017. “Clearly he had been through a lot, but having learned about his character, his ability to kind of plow through adversity, his infrastructure, his support system, all of that, we kind of felt that that would help him get through what he had to go through.” 

By February 2019, the Sixers had all but moved on from the idea of Fultz as their third star. They already had two cornerstones in Embiid and Simmons, and they had recently acquired All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler from the Timberwolves. Two years after moving up to select Fultz in the draft, Philadelphia was ready to trade him. 

The Magic jumped at the opportunity, sending Jonathon Simmons, a protected 2020 first-round pick (via Oklahoma City), and a 2019 second-round pick to the Sixers in exchange for Fultz. (As fate would have it, that first-round pick ultimately became the dynamic point guard the Sixers were searching for all along: Maxey, whom the Sixers took 21st in 2020 and has since blossomed into an All-Star.) On Orlando’s side, the franchise had been mired in mediocrity since trading Dwight Howard in 2012, and the front office was ready to take a swing on a 20-year-old with superstar upside. 

“You don’t often get a chance to acquire players of that caliber,” Weltman explains. The Magic bet that removing Fultz from the media circus of Philadelphia and giving him a chance to start fresh could help him rediscover his predraft form. 

Meanwhile, after months in the gym trying to strengthen his body, Fultz was starting to believe in his game again, too. He remembers a specific moment in a California gym, after the TOS diagnosis but before the trade, when he knew things were starting to turn for the better.

“I was doing three-a-day workouts, and I was in the gym, and I got a little rhythm,” he says. “And I started to see progress, and that was the first time I actually got excited. … It still was never back to where I wanted it, but I still had improvement, and that told me I can’t worry about the end picture, I just got to worry about making a little bit of progress every day. And it really taught me a life lesson of staying in the moment and staying locked in, just to get a little bit better. That’s all that matters.”

When Fultz arrived in Orlando after the deadline, the Magic let him know they wanted him to move at his own pace—both mentally and physically. Rather than jump immediately into the fray, Fultz spent the remainder of that season rehabbing his shoulder and integrating into the Magic’s culture, including working with the team psychiatrist. 

“It’s a hard league, and it’s a hard life,” Weltman says. “Markelle at a very young age has been through a whole lot, and so we just felt it was important that he understood that we’re not going to rush this. We’re going to allow him to go through the process of rehab, and we wanted to remove any sort of extra pressures that would have come with such a high-profile player.”

Fultz returned to the court in 2019-20, his first full season in Orlando, and averaged 12.1 points and 5.1 assists in 72 games—by far the most successful season of his young pro career. But new injuries soon reminded Fultz of old challenges. He tore his ACL in January 2021, which limited him to just 26 games across the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. He once again bounced back in 2022-23, displaying the sort of all-around floor game that could fit well next to big ball handlers like Banchero and Franz Wagner, and he even started to flash a respectable jump shot out to 3-point range, canning 31 percent of his 87 attempts from behind the arc. Fultz came into 2023-24 looking to build on that breakout, but another knee injury caused him to miss almost two months. 

Fultz’s dedication to getting back on the floor has always stood out to his teammates—both in Philadelphia and Orlando. Banchero says he’s learned from Fultz to not beat himself up. 

“That’s one thing I struggle with, I got to work on, is not try and always be perfect and getting so frustrated when I don’t play well or things don’t go right,” Banchero says. “He’s the complete opposite when it comes to a bad game or a bad performance. He’ll be the first one to tell me, ‘Let it go. Let’s go. Move on.’ One thing he’ll say: ‘Man, we get paid. We’re still going to get paid. We’re still good. … You got to keep pushing and keep moving.’” 

Weltman chuckles at the notion that a 25-year-old could be the sort of veteran presence that other players seek for counsel.

“It’s kind of ridiculous, but Markelle’s one of the old-heads almost,” Weltman says. “He’s such an amazing person. He’s an energy giver, and he’s got natural leadership qualities, but he’s also still finding himself as a player, as a person, as a dad now. He’s growing up. ... He’s super smart, he’s super aware, he’s super competitive.”

The difference in Fultz’s game is noticeable to anyone who watched him rise to the top of prospect lists seven years ago. He blends into the flow of possessions more, often getting the ball moving and then running to a spot or looking for a timely cut. He’s still a good athlete, though he’s more effective these days on defense, where he rates as one of the best players on one of the league’s top units. 

Injuries, primarily tendonitis, have sidelined Fultz and prevented him from making the kind of leap he expected coming into the season, but his teammates say his impact goes beyond the box score. “His level of communication’s always high, and he’s always just pumping guys with confidence,” Banchero says. In 25 games since his return from injury, Fultz has scored seven points per game as he’s toggled between the starting lineup and the bench. His team, meanwhile, has surged to fifth in the Eastern Conference, where it’s poised to make the playoffs for the first time since 2020.

Beyond this season, the Magic are still searching for the right combinations around Banchero and Wagner, especially in the backcourt. Suggs’s emergence and Orlando’s two rookie guards, Anthony Black and Jett Howard, complicate Fultz’s long-term role. He is a valued leader who fits their defensive identity, but he also eats into Orlando’s already tight spacing after all but excising the 3-pointer from his shot diet. At the end of this season, his fifth in Orlando, he’ll be an unrestricted free agent.

In February, Orlando reportedly explored the trade market for Fultz, its largest expiring contract, before opting to hang on to him through the deadline. The Magic project to have almost $40 million in cap space this offseason should they wish to re-sign him, but Fultz will control his own destiny for the first time in his career. 

That in and of itself registers as a minor miracle given how it started. “This kid was hit in every direction,” Mosley says. “And the fact that he just stays with a smile on his face, pure joy when he touches that floor … it’s special.”

“I have a huge level of pride,” Ebony says. “He loves the game of basketball, always has since he came out the womb. … It’s like heaven on earth for me to see him accomplishing the things that he’s accomplishing.” 

Fultz, though, isn’t satisfied. Like every NBA player, he still aspires to become an All-Star, make the playoffs, and ultimately win a championship. “My mindset hasn’t changed,” he says, stressing the importance of staying the course. But he’s also achieved a sort of serenity in his role and an acceptance of the twists and turns that led him there. “I’m thankful for everything,” Fultz says. “Everything I’ve been through has given me a different appreciation just to be able to play the game.”

On one level, Fultz’s story resembles the archetypal tale of overcoming adversity. His countless hours in the gym and the lessons he’s taken from them—“The results will come eventually, but the work is more important”—are the stuff of motivational posters. But on another level, his journey is inspiring in its own way. Fultz’s refusal to become a basketball tragedy turned him into something he never anticipated. It is resilience without an end date, still unfolding as he refines his game and works to secure his long-term place in the NBA. 

“I think a lot of people have kind of forgotten about me,” Fultz says. “But I believe in the work, and I know I still have a lot of time.” 

Nick Friedell covered the NBA for ESPN for 14 years and now travels the world in search of the next great cheeseburger.

Nick Friedell