2020 wasn’t all that bad for one Philadelphia 76ers winger.
Going into the 2019-20 NBA season, very few fans of the Philadelphia 76ers had high hopes for Furkan Korkmaz.
In theory, it made sense. Korkmaz had his fourth-year option declined the season prior, and after failing to land a new contract on the open market, the now-23-year-old Turkish sharpshooter return to South Philly on a bargain bin deal worth $3.38 million over two years.
Surely Furky was a bubble player who’d get a few minutes here and there before eventually fading into obscurity like his fellow 2016 draftmate Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, right? Not so fast, my friends.
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Sidebar: I wonder what ever happened to TLC *logs on Pro-Basketball-Reference* Oh wow, it looks like he had a pretty fantastic 2020 too.
Suddenly one of the rare shooters on a team that willfully purged themselves of J.J. Redick, Jimmy Butler, and Landry Shamet over the 2019 calendar year, Korkmaz jumped off to a quick start during the first 19 games of the regular season – averaging 8.3 points per game in roughly 20.6 minutes of action a night – before seriously taking his game up a notch in 2020 – where he fully embraced his new sixth man status by putting up an average of 11.2 points in 22.7 minutes of action a night.
To make matters all the more impressive, Korkmaz stepped up his accuracy – and shot attempts – from beyond the arc considerably when the calendar flipped from 2019 to 2020 – going from1.6 made 3s on 4.3 attempts a night to 2.4 made 3s a game at a team-high 41.6 percent clip.
Suddenly, Korkmaz looked like one of the Sixers’ true bargains and one of their second-tier players worthy of a spot in the post-Brett Brown-era of Philly basketball.
When Daryl Morey was looking to restock the cupboard for new head coach Doc Rivers, the wily wheeler-and-deal explicitly retained Korkmaz despite completing a pair of player-for-player trades, signifying a specific desire to see if the 6-foot-7 winger could build upon the first eight months of 2020 when the season opened up just before Christmas.
Though the sample size may be small – and will remain small for the next few weeks as Korkmaz recovers from a groin injury – it’s pretty safe to say the results are so far, so good.
Fully locked in as the Sixers’ second team small forward behind Danny Green, Korkmaz has appeared in five games – if you count the preseason – and has been off to a pretty gosh darn good start from a statistical standpoint – averaging eight points in 18.6 minutes of action a night, all the while hitting 8-25 shots from beyond the arc.
Has Furky been perfect? Nope. His 3 point shooting percentage has been a tad underwhelming, and his pension for getting a bit too cute when he charges the basket has led to a field goal percentage of 32, but in my humble opinion, I’m not too concerned. We’re talking about a five-game sample size after all, and even in a 71 game abbreviated 2020-21 season, that’s still nothing to get worked up about.
If nothing else, Korkmaz’s incredibly consistent playing time is a true indication of just how confident both Rivers and Morey are with having number 30 on the court – a good sign for a player set to hit free agency at the end of the season.
Has 2020 overall been a pretty horrible year? Most definitely, but Furkan Korkmaz proved over his segmented tenure with the Philadelphia 76ers that good things can still come when you work hard and keep your head down. While 2021 will (hopefully) feature a whole lot less stress, strife, and mid-season five-month sports hiatuses, let’s hope the one thing that remains consistent is Furky’s sixth man status – even if Shake Milton gets all of the national attention.