Former Sixer Markelle Fultz appeared recently on The Rematch with Etan Thomas, and dropped some facts about Philadelphia sports fans:

“I always felt love when I was there.”

This video clip should be saved, stored, and then brought back out whenever some national media bozo or Laker fan says something about how terrible Philadelphia is. Everybody knows it was always false, the “Philly fans are assholes” narrative. What’s true is that you get a lot of love and support for playing hard and working to improve your game and yourself, and when you aren’t doing that, the fans will let you know about it. It’s exactly as Markelle described, and it’s what’s happening with Ben Simmons right now.

It’s good to hear this from Markelle. He came into a difficult situation in Philadelphia as a #1 draft pick on a team with high expectations coming out of the process era. He was very young. Now he’s been around a bit and seems to have grown and matured. Even though it didn’t work out here, he had a grasp of what Philadelphia was all about and was able to convey that very succinctly in the above video clip.