July 10, 2018
Give this to basketball trainer Drew Hanlen — he sure knows how to market his product. With the St. Louis native in charge of workout programs for several prominent Sixers this summer, including Markelle Fultz and center Joel Embiid, he has done everything in his power to leave Philadelphia hanging on his every word.
Case and point: with just four words on Twitter on Sunday evening, Hanlen caused a bit of an uproar.
Sixers fans... Get excited!
— Drew Hanlen (@DrewHanlen) July 8, 2018
And really, I don't blame any of you for getting worked up about it. The stakes for Fultz's summer are massive — the Sixers have withheld him from serious trade discussions for a reason, and they continue to believe in him as a long-term piece of their core. Those actions have consequences no matter which direction the pendulum swings.
We've only heard positive things so far about Fultz's progress on his jumper, but that shouldn't be taken as gospel just yet. After all, what are the people close to him or with the Sixers going to say, that all the work has been for nothing? Unlikely.
But after a lot of teasing and still images and dunk videos, we have what appears to be some footage of Fultz shooting a basketball... sort of. Hanlen's team made sure to shoot the video like a Cinemax softcore porn, selectively hiding the pieces of footage that might reveal too much. But there's a bit of footage to look at all the same.
this is as close as we have to #Sixers Zapruder footage pic.twitter.com/BKILR2BPDG
— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) July 10, 2018
If you're the sort of person who wants to sit and study the velocity of his wrist snapping or his lower-body mechanics, by all means do your thing. What seems like the more pressing information here is the amount of hours Fultz is putting in — the video shows this was his third time with Hanlen in a single day, with a skills workout in between sessions meant to bring his shooting up to par.
One thing that has remained consistent over the period of time I've reported on Fultz has been assurances of his work ethic and love for the game of basketball. That was true at the nadir of his issues this winter, and it remained true when he joined his teammates on the Summer League sidelines late last week. It's tough to say whether three-a-days are a regular occurrence, but the hours are piling up one way or another.
Also of note in the video (it's the namesake for it, after all) is the one-on-one footage involving Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum, and recent draft pick Mo Bamba. The three young phenoms get after each other in spirited fashion, and while it's obviously edited down to make each guy look good, it's a heck of a lot of fun to watch Embiid take on a wing like Tatum, and vice versa.
If you want to watch the big man call himself, "the walking GOAT," or get a glimpse into a day in the life with these guys, I would strongly recommend watching the video below.
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