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Furkan Korkmaz has been a bright spot on this Sixers team during the early parts of this season as a long-range sniper and a high-energy player.
The Sixers’ sniper has been consistent over the team’s first 6 games and has played 19.8 minutes per game, dropping in 10.2 points per game on 41.7/34.6/92.3 shooting splits. On top of his excellent three-point shooting, “Steph Turkey” has been showing improvement in many easily seen categories.
Furkan Korkmaz is posting career highs in points per game (10.2), field goals attempted per game (8.0), free throws made per game (2.0), free throws attempted per game (2.2), free throw percentage (92.3%), and, most exciting, assists per game (3.0). The fact that Korkmaz is still improving this many aspects of his game at only age 24 is astounding.
Furkan Korkmaz is currently averaging 12.5 points and 3.3 assists while shooting 38.1% from three on 5.3 attempts per game
— Sean Barnard (@Sean_Barnard1) October 28, 2021
He has taken some massive strides as a passer and the Sixers have a +1.3 assist% and +4.2 pace rating when he is on the court
Furk is still 24 years old
It goes beyond just statistics as well. Furkan Korkmaz has been consistently improving in all aspects of his game, not just on offense. Over the past few seasons, Furkan has gone from one of the worst defenders in the league to a serviceable player who consistently makes an effort.
At this moment, Furkan Korkmaz is posting a career-high Player Efficiency Rating (PER) as well with a score of 17.5, where the league average is 15 according to Basketball-Reference. For reference, that is just under the PER that Tobias Harris had last year (20.0). Furkan also has a True Shooting Percentage (TS%) of 56.8%.
Sixers are +13 with Furkan Korkmaz on the court — and +33.3 per 100 possessions with him on the court — through two games this season.
— Austin Krell (@NBAKrell) October 23, 2021
And the eye test says those numbers aren’t even sneaky. Early returns suggest he could be a candidate to take a big step forward this season.
Furkan Korkmaz has long been the type of player who develops a cult following for simply being supremely interesting. However, with this explosion of efficiency and progression, he is proving himself as an NBA talent to people beyond the Sixers fanbase. This improvement is astounding for Furkan and for the Philadelphia 76ers organization, who at one time declined his team option on his rookie scale contract.
Korkmaz went from hardly playing for the Sixers and having his team option declined, to requesting a trade, to almost being forced to go back and play in Turkey, to barely grabbing on as the 15th man, to finally getting a chance to show his amazing progression.
Furkan resigned with the 76ers this offseason after speaking about how he wished to return to Philadelphia on a three-year $15 million contract. So far this season, Furkan has proved himself worthy of this contract and is making a case for one of the best value contracts for a non-rookie contract in the league.
More must-reads:
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- The 'Highest career PPG in the playoffs' quiz
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