Part of the fun of watching the NBA summer league is seeing the rookies playing NBA ball for the first time since the NBA Draft. Names like Lonzo Ball, Markelle Fultz, Jayson Tatum, Josh Jackson, and more have been showing their respective team's fans why they were worth taking with lottery picks in this year's draft.
Sadly, the No. 1 overall pick, Markelle Fultz, won't play another game this summer for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Markelle Fultz injury
The Markelle Fultz injury happened on Saturday when his Philadelphia 76ers were playing the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
The 76ers fans were not even able to enjoy their team's NBA summer league victory over the Warriors because Fultz had to be helped off the court after injuring his ankle. The reason for the Philadelphia concern was obvious.
Last year, the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft also belonged to the Philadelphia 76ers and they chose Ben Simmons. In the final training camp game before the 2016-17 NBA season started, Simmons rolled his ankle and fractured it. Simmons missed the entire season. 2014 lottery pick Joel Embiid missed his rookie season as well, so it looked like history was repeating itself for the third year. Embiid went to Twitter with his emotions on his sleeve.
Oh no no no.. don't do this to us
— Joel Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 9, 2017
The good news for the 76ers
In 2014, Joel Embiid broke the navicular bone in his foot. In 2016, Ben Simmons fractured the metatarsal bone in his foot. The good news for the Philadelphia 76ers in 2017 is that Markelle Fultz just suffered a lateral ankle sprain and his tests came back negative.
That means that, while he teammates missed entire seasons after their breaks, Fultz will just miss one to two weeks.
That means that Markelle Fultz will miss the rest of the NBA summer league, and while fans might have wanted to see him play, Philadelphia 76ers fans will be more than happy to watch him sit to allow him to remain healthy for the actual season when it starts this fall.
Other NBA rookie action
While Markelle Fultz is finished, other NBA fans are wanting their favorite teams to err on the caution of their top rookies as well. Lonzo Ball is the one rookie that most fans want to see, either to see if he can reach the hype he entered the NBA with or to see him fail to shut up his dad LaVar Ball.
Lonzo Ball didn't play on Monday because he suffered a groin injury last week. That might explain his horrendous debut game in the NBA summer league but it wouldn't explain his triple-double the next night.