No surprises here, since his contract option was declined, but Furkan is reportedly headed back to Turkey to play with Fenerbahce:

Crappy translation from Turkish site Ajansspor:

Fenerbahce Furkan move in the transfer!

Fenerbahce Beko, who lost the championship in Tahincioglu Basketball Super League to Anadolu Efes but received a big applause despite all the misfortune, is about to finish a flash transfer for the coming season. Allegedly; Fenerbahce reached an agreement with Furkan Korkmaz.

Will add power to Fener

He reached an agreement with Furkan Korkmaz, the youngest star of Turkish basketball, who could not find what he wanted with the Philadelphia 76ers jersey in the NBA and would be released on July 1.

How did Furkan Korkmaz perform?

The transfer is expected to be officially announced soon. He was born in 1997 with 2.01 neck guard 76ers shirt and played 13 games in the last season, 13.8 minutes in the field with an average of 5.7 points, 2.2 rebounds had contributed to the statistics. Furkan also plays in the forward position. (Calendar)

Furkan was a 2016 1st round draft pick, number 24 overall. He played the 2016-2017 season with Banvit, on loan from Anadolu Efes, then came over to play for the Sixers in 2017, appearing in 14 games while suffering a Lisfranc injury with the Blue Coats. He appeared in 48 games this past season, his year shortened due to a February meniscus tear.

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If you know anything about 2019, you know that society at large is extremely sensitive. Everything is offensive, everything is inappropriate, and if we don’t show caution in what we say or write, somebody may be triggered.

This story had been floating around for some time, but I don’t recall any sort of official press release or league office statement or confirmation of a policy change. The NBA is moving away from the term “owner” and going with “governor” instead, since “owner” is deemed racially insensitive by a number of professional basketball players. The change just sort of happened, and Commissioner Adam Silver commented on it this weekend.

Via TMZ:

When we saw Silver out in NYC, we asked if he supported the decision and how the league office is handling the issue.

“I don’t want to overreact to the term because, as I said earlier, people end up twisting themselves into knots avoiding the use of the word owner,” Silver said … “But, we moved away from that term years ago in the league.”

“We call our team owners ‘Governor of the team’ and ‘alternate Governor.'”

Silver says the word owner has sometimes slipped through in an NBA memo — but general rule in the office is to no longer use that term … adding, “I’m sensitive to it and I think to the extent teams are moving away from the term, we’ll stick with using Governor.”

This is a bit of a nothing burger to me, because people like Sixers Managing Partner Josh Harris don’t own Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. They own the team that those guys play for. The players voluntarily enter the NBA, where they go on to earn millions of dollars playing basketball. The “owners” are majority equity holders operating under league rules combined with a collective bargaining agreement, similar to pretty much every private sector corporation in this country.

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So last night Adrian Wojnarowski said Kawhi Leonard could “possibly” take a meeting with the Sixers as he explores free agency this summer.

I personally believe that to be bullshit, and even if he did meet with the Sixers, I’d place a 0.0001% chance on Kawhi signing with your town, your team.

Today we’ve got Cris Carter COUNTERING Woj’s report with this:

I was told today, Kawhi isn’t planning to meet with the Philadelphia 76’ers.

— Cris Carter (@criscarter80) June 21, 2019

These are the teams Kawhi with have discussions with: Nets , Knicks, Lakers, Clippers, and of course Raptors . Nothing has changed from my original list. https://t.co/QqNKPkVRf9

— Cris Carter (@criscarter80) June 21, 2019

Put me in the camp of people who hope that Cris Carter is right, because I don’t want to go through the Bryce Harper/Manny Machado will he/won’t he nonsense again. Does anybody really think Kawhi Leonard is coming to Philadelphia? Hell nah, bro.

And if he does miraculously sign here, I’ll delete this post and deny that it was ever written.

Not Jesus Christ, but Christ Koumadje out of FSU:

The Philadelphia 76ers will sign Christ Koumadje, undrafted 7’4 centre out of Florida State, to a free agent deal. Koumadje started all 37 games last season and averaged 6.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 15.5 minutes per game.

— Mark Deeks (@MarkDeeksNBA) June 21, 2019

Christ went to Montverde Academy in Florida, where Ben Simmons attended high school. He’s 7’4″, 264 pounds, just a monstrous human being who was born in Chad, moved to Senegal, and then came to the United States.

Some notes via NBADraft.Net:

Overall: Christ Koumadje is a force that is hard to stop if used right … He only played 15 minutes per game in his senior year but was definitely productive during those … He needs to continue to learn to use his body to his advantage as well as expand his overall offensive game … He is great for setting effective screens and running the pick and roll.

Notes: Having not picked up a basketball until high school .., it is interesting to see just how far this young man has come. He has a unique skill-set for his size which is rare … A 7’4, 265 lb. guy who can run the floor with that type of speed and quickness is unusual … He has shown improvement throughout his four-year career at Florida State and could be a hidden gem of a prospect …

Hmm.. I can think of another African guy who didn’t pick up a basketball until he was a teenager…

Christ worked out for the Sixers before the draft, video after the jump:

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Keith Pompey:

.@TerryHarris115 will play for the #Sixers summer league team in Vegas. He is the younger brother of #Sixers soon-to-be free agent @tobias31

— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) June 21, 2019

Solid 24 hours for Keith, who was out in front on a few things. I think he beat Shams by half a minute on one of the draft night trades.

Terry Harris was in for a pre-draft workout with the Sixers. I have no clue if there’s legit interest in him, or if his presence is just to curry favor with Tobias, but I think it’s probably the latter. Terry was a red shirt senior at North Carolina A&T, a 6’6″ wing who averaged 8 points and 3 rebounds per game this past season. He did shoot 41% on 4.6 three-point attempts per game.

Tobias seems to be a fan of the move, obviously:

🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 https://t.co/rchCxmAQOk

— Tobias Harris (@tobias31) June 21, 2019

Some highlights of his brother, after the jump:

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Marial Shayok is what we would call a late bloomer.

The Sixers took the Iowa State shooting guard with pick #54 overall last night, and he’s really a unique prospect when you dig in a little bit.

I watched him drop 18 points on my squad this past year as a Cyclone, a head-scratcher of an experience since this was the same player who only had a bit part role in previous WVU games while playing for the Virginia Cavaliers. Shayok played three seasons in Charlottesville before transferring to Ames, where he showed off a smooth shot and finished #2 on the Big 12 scoring charts during his senior season. He was named first team all-conference.

The improvement really is drastic. Shayok increased his PPG nearly 10 points during his senior season after sitting out the 2017-2018 campaign, after the jump:

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Feels like it’s free agency or bust for the Sixers this summer, at least judging by comments General Manager Elton Brand made after last night’s wonky and somewhat head-scratching draft.

To recap, the Sixers:

• promised Matisse Thybulle and had to trade pick 33 to move up and select him at 20
• traded pick 34 for future picks
• attached pick 42 in a trade to clear Jonathon Simmons’ $1 million guaranteed salary
• drafted a late blooming senior in Marial Shayok at #54 overall

Sixers Twitter seemed very annoyed by this turn of events, namely because it was generally agreed that the team needed affordable depth and a rotational piece or two to complement what would obviously be the pursuit of Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris in an effort to run it back with the starting lineup that took the Raptors to seven games in the Eastern Conference Semifinals

Instead, the Sixers, who only have four players under contract as of June 21st, turned five picks into two players, one of whom is a fringe prospect at best.

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Did the Sixers tip their hand by showing too much interest in Washington guard Matisse Thybulle?

Seems that way.

The team traded picks 24 and 33 to Boston in order to move up four spots to select Thybulle on Thursday night, and speaking to reporters via conference call later that evening, the 6’5″ Naismith Defensive Player of the Year said the Sixers showed early interest in him:

“They showed interest really, really early in the draft process. They continued to show interest and my family and my agents and I were all really excited about that because of how talented of a team and how well-run of a franchise they are. It continued to go and we trusted them and put our faith in them and here we are.”

Thybulle didn’t work out for any teams at all during the pre-draft process. Was he guaranteed a spot on a specific squad?

“Like I said before, Philly showed interest early and we just trusted them and decided we were going to put our faith in them and just kind of shut things down and see what happened on draft night. They stayed true to their word and the rest is history.”

Read into that last line what you will – “they stayed true to their word.” Receiving a promise from an NBA squad is a pretty good reason to shut it down.

I present this tweet from earlier:

Wow. The Sixers had promised Matisse Thybulle with the no. 24 pick. It shows how badly Philly wanted Thybulle to give this up: He's a potential perfect fit as a multi-positional defender who blends in on offense next to Ben and Joel. https://t.co/65FZ2BYzf7

— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) June 21, 2019

A couple more key quotes from Thybulle, after the jump:

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