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Adrian WojnarowskiESPN
Guard Markelle Fultz has rejoined the Philadelphia 76ers to continue therapy on a shoulder condition, pushing for a return to the lineup this season, league sources told ESPN.
There’s no timetable yet on Fultz playing again this year, league sources said.
Fultz flew on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles and arrived Saturday where he met with Sixers officials prior to today’s game against Oklahoma City, sources said.
Fultz, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, has been mostly away from the Sixers since seeing several medical specialists in late November and leaving the team for what has been termed a condition called thoracic outlet syndrome. Fultz has been working with therapists in Los Angeles since December 6, but did return East for a short visit at Christmas. Fultz left the Sixers to meet with medical specialists on November 21, and hasn’t played a game since.
Fultz’s agent, Raymond Brothers, told ESPN three weeks ago that his client is progressing well in rehabilitation on his right shoulder and expects Fultz to return to the team this season. “We want to make sure he’s 100 percent and healthy when he does come back,” Brothers told ESPN at Christmas.
Brothers said that Fultz has been regaining strength and mobility in a right shoulder that the agent believes will improve a jump shot form that has failed the 2017 NBA Draft’s No. 1 overall pick thus far in the league.
After meeting with several specialists in November and early December, Brothers said that Fultz had been diagnosed with a condition called thoracic outlet syndrome.
On the advice of Brothers, Fultz visited with multiple specialists in late November and early December. Brothers told ESPN in early December that Thoracic Outlet Syndrome “affects nerves between the neck and shoulder resulting in abnormal functional movement and range of motion, thus severely limiting Markelle’s ability to shoot a basketball.”
There was a Sixers medical team member on each of the visits to the specialists.
Fultz has lost the ability to carry out and follow through on long jump shots, and there’s been internal and external debate about how much of this perplexing circumstance is physical vs. mental.
“People were saying it was a mental problem and it is not,” Brothers told ESPN in early December. “There’s no way you’re the No. 1 pick in the world and all of a sudden you aren’t able to consistently raise your arms to shoot a basketball. Something is physically wrong. Now we have the answer to that problem.”
ESPN’s Tim Bontemps contributed to his report.