The latest on Markelle Fultz involves security cameras and nondisclosure agreements

[The AchieVer]

Markelle Fultz and his mother conducted an interview from their home prior to the 2017 NBA draft.

Every update on Philadelphia 76ers guard Markelle Fultz, the former No. 1 overall pick who mysteriously lost his jump shot, is more bizarre than the next, and this one is no different.

Many before her have tried, including a number of NBA teams, but The Washington Post’s Candace Buckner continued to dig into whether Fultz’s shooting woes are physical or mental (or both), and her quest uncovered one of the strangest shreds of evidence we’ve heard in a saga full of them. It involves the 20-year-old’s mother, Ebony Fultz, who is reportedly “an imposing figure in her son’s life”:

 

Fultz is now a professional on a four-year contract worth $33 million, but close associates said Ebony still goes to great lengths to shield him. During Fultz’s first season in Philadelphia, Ebony had cameras installed inside his New Jersey home, according to several people familiar with the setup who described the indoor surveillance as unusual. The cameras have since been removed. Multiple people said Ebony has asked some who have dealt with Fultz to sign nondisclosure agreements for reasons that are unclear to them.

This detail is one of many in Buckner’s profile that portrays Ebony Fultz as overbearing. According to Buckner, she and her son’s agent, Raymond Brothers, are the center of a dwindling circle around the second-year Sixer — a development that has reportedly left Keith Williams on the outside looking in.

Williams built the shooting form that led the University of Washington and the 76ers to covet Fultz. He also caught some of the blame for the deterioration of that form. Williams denied any involvement in Fultz’s downfall, pointing instead to a shoulder injury Fultz cited the 

summer before his rookie season.

Williams told Buckner that Fultz informed him in the summer of 2017, “It feels like somebody’s holding my arms down,” which would be the earliest known evidence of his most recent diagnosis: thoracic outlet syndrome. It took more than a year and doctors in the double digits to discover that ailment.

And just when we think we might be closer to determining that Fultz’s shooting problems are physical in nature, we’re left with this analysis from “a person with a close connection to Fultz,” via Buckner:

“There’s definitely crazy [expletive] going on with the mom and how involved she is and how overprotective she is. The best possible situation is if the mom just backs off for a period of time and gives him a chance to breathe.”

That brings us back to the psychological side, which leads us to believe once again that this strangest of NBA stories is rooted in issues both mental and physical. He’s young enough to sort both out, so long as he has the right people around him. This latest development makes you wonder if he does.

 

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