The five most important games for Markelle Fultz this season

The Philadelphia 76ers have a lot to look forward to this upcoming season, and that includes the rookie season for No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz. These five games will show if he can live up to his draft status.

After a memorable off-season, Philadelphia 76ers‘ fans finally have the team’s full NBA schedule to dissect. While there’s a whole lot to look forward to with Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons coming back from injury, the team will still need No. 1 overall pick Markelle Fultz to have an impact to get into the playoff picture.

As the head of what appears to be a loaded draft class, Fultz has a lot to live up to. These five games will help show whether the Sixers made the right choice.

Monday, October 30 — Houston Rockets

Once upon a time, Rockets’ superstar James Harden was a Top 3 draft pick of Oklahoma City, forming an enviable young trio with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Sound familiar? Harden might have come off the bench early on for the Thunder, but he also notched a Sixth Man of the Year Award.

Fultz isn’t quite as big as Harden, but his all-around game does bear some resemblance to the MVP runner-up. To reach the playoffs, the 76ers need Fultz to average more than the 9.9 ppg that Harden managed in his rookie season. They would also prefer that the young point guard turn into a superstar while still playing in Philadelphia. This game, though, provides Fultz with a preview of what the future could hold.

Wednesday, November 15 — at Los Angeles Lakers

OK, so this is just a big game for most of the 76ers. Thanks to Embiid’s war of words with Lavar Ball, this contest between two teams that were terrible last season was upgraded to a national ESPN game. That shade battle started, of course, on draft night as the Sixers took Fultz and the Lakers selected Lonzo Ball. The Process made it clear where his loyalties lie.

With Fultz nursing a sprained ankle, Ball wowed everyone at the NBA’s Summer League in July. That quickly led to seemingly everyone jumping on the Ball bandwagon. That included Las Vegas, with most sports books installing the Lakers’ rookie as the favorite for Rookie of the Year.

It’s possible that Ball really does have the “It” factor that will make him a transcendent superstar. Still, there’s a reason why Fultz went ahead of him. The Sixers’ choice might not generate the same excitement level, but there are virtually no holes in his game (offensively, at least). Adam Silver has to be praying that both rookies live up to the hype so that Embiid and the elder Ball can keep one-upping each other for years to come.

Thursday, January 18 — Boston Celtics

Welcome to the “What Could Have Been” series for the 76ers’ rookie. No matter what happens in his career, Fultz will always be tied to Boston, the team that traded away the right to draft the Washington product to Philadelphia.

The Celtics and Sixers will have already played three times — including once in London a week earlier — but in their final tilt, a more complete picture of both teams’ future should evolve. Was Danny Ainge correct in his assessment that there’s no difference in the talent level between Fultz and Duke’s Jayson Tatum, whom Boston took with the No. 3 pick?

Chances are that the 76ers newest potential star will want to prove Ainge wrong when the teams meet early in the season, which could skew perceptions. By this point, though, there should be enough data to start making a fair assessment of the trade.

Wednesday, January 31 — at Brooklyn Nets

No one would expect Fultz to think of this, but this mid-season match-up with the Nets offers the rookie a view of a less obvious alternative universe he avoided. When the 76ers traded up to select the Washington product, it was really Brooklyn’s pick that they received.

Thanks to former Nets’ executive Billy King — a name familiar to all Sixers fans — Brooklyn has descended into the kind of NBA purgatory into which Sam Hinkie willingly led Philly. Unfortunately for anyone unlucky enough to be a Nets’ fan, Brooklyn didn’t land in Tankland as part of some radical rebuilding project.

The team is simply bad with no clear path out of the wilderness. The 76ers veterans should make their rookie teammate buy dinner at Luger’s as a reminder of how lucky he is not to be calling Brooklyn home.

Sunday, April 8 — Dallas Mavericks

Thanks to Draft Night, Fultz will be tied to both Ball and Tatum no matter what he does. To a lesser extent, the same could be said for Phoenix’s Josh Jackson, Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox, and Charlotte’s Malik Monk — all players that 76ers fans thought they might get with the No. 3 pick.

Initially, the Mavericks’ Dennis Smith Jr. wouldn’t have fallen into that category. However, that was before this:

https://twitter.com/LegendOfWinning/status/896341655594389508

Yes, Smith was clowning Fultz right to his face, while the pair made an appearance on Twitch’s NBA Rookies Flashback Friday. Apparently nobody told the Dallas rookie that his new team only managed five more wins than the 76ers last season.

Smith’s confidence comes from the fact that he lit up the Summer League, looking like a smaller, less-hyped version of Ball. Before the lottery, the North Carolina State point guard was frequently tied to the Sixers. Nobody thought of him as a Top 3 pick, though, so he dropped out of sight and out of mind quickly.

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If Smith is able to replicate his summer performance during the regular season, that will just add one more name for Philly fans to obsess over every time that Fultz has a bad game.