Markelle Fultz made a 3-pointer, and Ben Simmons still isn't shooting them

Both of the Philadelphia 76ers’ recent No. 1 overall picks entered training camp with rebuilt jump shots. Ben Simmons spent the summer working with his brother Liam to adjust the form that left him suspicious of the 3-point line and 56 percent from the free-throw line during his Rookie of the Year campaign. And famed shot doctor Drew Hanlen completely rebuilt Markelle Fultz’s jumper, reminding us in June that the 20-year-old suffered from “the yips” and “completely forgot how to shoot.”

Philadelphia’s backcourt duo is sure to be heavily scrutinized all year, and Hall of Famers-turned-NBA TV analysts Kevin McHale and Isiah Thomas got an early start this preseason, with McHale suggesting that Simmons won’t “ever be a great shooter” and that Fultz still has “a bad-looking jumper.”

“If you want to learn to shoot, please get some NBA players to teach you how to shoot,” said Thomas, bashing Hanlen and by proxy Liam Simmons. “You can’t go get little guys who never played in the NBA, never faced defensive pressure, and that guy’s going to teach you to shoot? It’s not going to happen.”

Fultz and Simmons are also tempering expectations, one more than the other.

Markelle Fultz attempted 160,000 shots this summer

“Shot-wise, I mean, it’s not 100 percent,” Fultz said from media day last week. “I don’t think anybody’s shot is 100 percent, but I’m just putting in the work every day, and that’s all I can ask for. I’m confident enough, and I feel like I have what I need to help this team in the ways I want to help it.”

That confidence translated into the first successful 3-pointer of Fultz’s professional career — a wide-open look from the corner in transition midway through the first quarter of Monday’s 120-114 preseason win over the Orlando Magic. After finishing 0-for-1 from distance in 14 games last season, failing to attempt a 3 in the Sixers’ preseason opener and missing his first try against the Magic, Fultz finally found the net, letting his follow-through hang in the air as the Philadelphia crowd erupted.

Hanlen had a front-row seat, and the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Bob Ford caught up with him afterwards.

“He took somewhere around 160,000 shots from June on,” Hanlen told the veteran columnist. “He worked harder than anybody I’ve ever had. He was putting in four and five hours a day and, honestly, work is what got him back. He’s in a great place right now and he’s going to continue to get better and I think he’s going to add a dynamic to the Sixers that’s going to really make them exciting.”

Yet, the jumper still looks imperfect, starting lower than the pull-up stroke that helped make him the near-consensus top prospect as a freshman at the University of Washington and moving slower through the finish, and even a cautiously optimistic-sounding Hanlen is hesitant to say Fultz is fixed.

“I get that question all the time and I tell people that nobody in the NBA has a perfect jump shot, maybe besides Klay Thompson,” Hanlen told Ford. “Every great shooter makes tweaks throughout his career so they continue to improve. We’re happy with where Markelle is right now.”

Right now, Fultz is still just 1-for-4 from distance in the preseason (although one of those was a half-court heave), and while that’s obviously a small sample size, the mere fact that he’s attempting 3’s is a significant improvement from the disaster that was his rookie season. Even more encouraging: Fultz is taking and making mid-range jump shots at a more-than-respectable clip through two preseason games, converting five of his 10 2-point attempts from beyond 10 feet in 48 minutes of action. By comparison, he made just 10 such shots all of last season (on 28 attempts in a total of 253 minutes).

Ben Simmons is ‘not going to come out and shoot 3’s’

The same can’t be said of Simmons, who told NBA TV on media day that he’s “never had somebody teach me to shoot, so it’s something I knew at. I have all these people saying I can’t do this, but it’s like, obviously I can’t, because I’ve never practiced it. So, this is really the first summer where I’ve had time to practice and work on my shot, which has given me a lot of confidence. I’m the type of person, you teach me one thing, I kind of pick it up pretty quickly, but at the same time I’m not going to come in this year hitting 3’s, shooting 3’s, because that’s not my game. But I’ll take a lot more jumpers.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, starting with Simmons saying he’s never worked on his jumper before, which is a wild thing for a guy to admit after winning Rookie of the Year. He did not need a jumper to average damn near a triple-double in his first season — a sign that he may yet be the NBA’s Next Big Thing. At the same time, the Boston Celtics all but eliminated his effectiveness in a five-game second-round series win over the Sixers, building a wall 10 feet from the basket, where Simmons made his bones during the regular season, and forcing him to operate in space from the perimeter.

The jump shot is what could really elevate Simmons from an All-Star level to a generational talent — the sort of shift that could make the Sixers a championship contender for years to come, especially if Fultz can also find his form and Second Team All-NBA center Joel Embiid can remain healthy.

Yet, through two preseason games, Simmons has attempted just one shot outside of 10 feet, a 14-foot turnaround jumper that was blocked by Orlando’s Aaron Gordon. He did make three of his four free-throw attempts on Monday, and he’s still dominating games — averaging 8.5 points (7-15 FG), 10.5 assists and 7.5 rebounds in 24 minutes over two preseason outings — but what happens when top-tier defenses are specifically designed to prey on his weaknesses in the playoffs, as the Celtics did?

This is where we remind you that two preseason games is a limited data set, and that Simmons just turned 22 years old. There is plenty of room to grow. Meanwhile, though, the Australian is making sure to set realistic expectations for that growth, perhaps setting a ceiling on this particular Sixers season.

“I’m not going to come out and shoot 3’s,” Simmons reminded the NBA world after Monday night’s game, via NBC Sports Philadelphia. “But getting to the line and making free throws is something I’ve been working on, too. It’s little steps like those that get you to where you want to be. I’m not close to where I want to be right now in terms of my offensive game, but I’m getting closer and closer.”

That runs somewhat contrary to what 76ers coach Brett Brown wants to see out of Simmons.

“If it’s there, in preseason I’d like for him to shoot it,” added Brown, “but I don’t think he avoided it.”

The Sixers have experimented with Simmons in the post, trying to get him easier looks from where he’s most comfortable as a playmaker, rather than forcing him to repeatedly fight through a sagging defense. And if Fultz could ever knock down enough shots to space the floor around Simmons, those two could develop a two-man dynamic that last year’s 52-win team didn’t have, creating all sorts of additional opportunities for themselves, Embiid on the other block and the shooters around them.

Sometimes the threat of a jumper can be just as effective as the real thing, but with Simmons conceding that he won’t be shooting 3-pointers and Fultz still working his way through his stroke, it remains to be seen when opposing defenses will worry about closing out on the two point guards.

Until they can silence their critics, the questions will continue to be asked, so Fultz and Simmons should get use to it, because the ones after Monday’s preseason game were only the beginning.

– – – – – – –

Ben Rohrbach is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

More from Yahoo Sports:
• Fitz’s jersey put in Hall of Fame at most ironic time
• Fan hit at Ryder Cup said to have lost sight in right eye
• Kanye’s new sneakers may be banned by NBA
• MLB postseason predictions: Experts pick wild-card winners