It’s time for No. 1 pick Fultz to turn 76ers into winners

He walked across the stage Thursday night at Barclays Center wearing orange sneakers made of basketballs.

But when news broke last week that the Philadelphia 76ers were trading for the top pick in the NBA Draft, all that changed.

Fultz even believes the new Sixers quartet can propel the team to a place they haven’t been since 2012, the playoffs. Ivan Rabb was projected as a sure-fire lottery pick before the 2016 draft, and wound up falling into the second round after returning to Cal for his sophomore season.

Perhaps the Blazers can again make themselves contenders for a top four seed in the Western Conference, but if not, they are just a very expensive team with little flexibility and little way to improve. “Once I heard my name called it was like God calling me”. The first two, Doug Collins in 1973 and Allen Iverson in 1996, worked out pretty well.

While that was being completed, the draft got off to a familiar start with the same top-four picks as a year ago: Philadelphia, the Lakers, Boston and Phoenix. The Sixers acquired the No. 1 pick in a deal with Boston for the third pick, plus an additional first-rounder in either 2018 or 2019.

But the Sixers aren’t counting on the Fultz-Simmons-Embiid core to simply entertain in 140-character bursts. Martin’s team went 8-14.

The 6-4 Fultz, while a defensive cipher past year for the Huskies, has those capabilities. After being drafted, he missed two seasons with an injury to his Navicular bone, then produced at a rather incredible clip in a 31-game stint.

“Joel will come out and [say] something similar”, said Brown, who watched both Simmons and Embiid get a workout in at the facility.

Fultz is a late bloomer. Probably. Syracuse had a few standouts in that game but received 11 points, six assists and four rebounds from unheralded swingman Michael Gbinije-who played his high school hoops for Benedictine High School in Richmond, Va. Fultz was chosen first-team All-Pac-12. He continued to blossom at Washington. Curry and Green most often initiated their offense, but ex-Sixer Andre Iguodala, a reserve, also did so at times. “Definitely was, and now I’m just focused on playing”, Lonzo Ball said. The Sixers, still in the baby-steps phase, will inch along behind two playmakers who have yet to play an National Basketball Association minute.

■ Ben Simmons, a 6-10 facilitator.

Reddick, on the left, threw a competitive pitch that some free swingers might offer at. He only made 64.9 of his attempt at the line at Washington. The Houston Rockets took Ralph Sampson No. 1 in 1983 and Hakeem Olajuwon a year later. If the first-rounder, which came from the Thunder in the Jerami Grant deal, doesn’t convey, it’d become a pair of second-round picks.

A dependable scorer and hard-nosed defender, Butler gives Thibodeau an intriguing complement to the Wolves’ young stars Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

The Raptors selected OG Anunoby with the No. 23 overall pick of the draft.

The 14 lottery picks in Thursday night’s National Basketball Association draft have been made, and there were three Wildcats selected.

The Bulls entered the draft with one superstar player and ended it with zero.