Does Markelle Fultz still have something going on with his shoulder?

Is it just a mental thing?

Responding to online criticism, trainer Drew Hanlen, who worked with Markelle on fixing his shot this summer, says the Sixers guard is not yet operating at 100%:

Hanlen’s tweet was later deleted.

For context, Clint Parks runs CPSA Training and has worked closely with Lakers’ second-year forward Kyle Kuzma, or as Hanlen describes him, “your man crush Kuz.” Hanlen is the CEO of Pure Sweat basketball, so the “Pure Sucka” is an obvious dig.

“You don’t know his situation. He’s still not healthy,” wrote Hanlen of Fultz, who has not appeared on any injury report this year, at least none that I can remember. It was understood that Markelle’s shoulder was 100% healed after he was listed with scapular muscle imbalance for the majority of his rookie season.

The other interesting thing is that Hanlen was the only person to publicly talk about the theory that Fultz had mental struggles, when he suggested in a summer podcast that Markelle was dealing with the “yips.” Fultz pushed back on that assertion at media day and said it wasn’t true.

Here’s the full question and response with the AP’s Dan Gelston dating back to September 21st:

Gelston: Drew said this summer in a podcast that you had the yips, where you forgot how to shoot. That’s what he said. How does that happen – is it just the injury? Is there more to it? Confidence? How do you get that?

Fultz: Yeah, you know, I think it was a mis-term in words. But me and Drew have talked, and what happened last year was an injury. Let me get that straight. It was an injury that happened that didn’t allow me to go through a certain path that I needed to to shoot the ball. Just like any normal person, when you’re used to doing something the same way each and every day, and something happens, of course you’re going to start thinking about it. It’s just normal. So, of course I had that injury happen, and then people took certain things, of changing shots, and ran with it. But that didn’t affect me. That’s the reason I didn’t just come out last year and try to go against the media or whatever. I just was worried about getting healthy and getting back to what I do. That’s what I did this summer, so I’m happy.

So Fultz says Hanlen misspoke, and now we have Hanlen responding to another trainer saying that Markelle is not yet 100% healthy. That tweet was later deleted.

Looks like there’s more to the story.

Edit: let me throw this in here –