It’s so great to see Markelle Fultz getting real and legitimate playing time with a playoff (kinda) team. He’s still not where many thought he would be coming out of college, but after what he’s gone through, we can only be pleased with his progress in contributing to winning (kinda) basketball.
But with this relative success, he should be careful to not forget the lessons of his past. He was unfairly held down in Philadelphia, broken by a combination of injuries and incompetence. He is probably still hurting, so recent are the wounds, both physical and mental. But he cannot, in his eagerness to show why he was drafted 1st overall, hold down others as he himself was held down.
Let’s just come out and say it: he’s holding down and marginalizing Josh Magette right now. Brutally.
Magette is saying all the right things to the media, and tries to be a good teammate while he sits on the bench, but you know that he’s frustrated. Why wouldn’t he be? He has worked just as hard as Fultz, just as hard as anybody on the Magic roster, to get to this point, and what is he rewarded with? Pity minutes on a pity contract. Fultz is hogging his point-guard minutes, and I totally get why. But all the wrongs that have been perpetrated on Fultz during his career don’t mean that Magette isn’t being marginalized.