What the heck is going on with Markelle Fultz’s shoulder?

Something is wrong with the shoulder of Markelle Fultz, the No. 1 pick the Philadelphia 76ers traded up to get.

Fultz was a scoring machine in one season at Washington. Now, his free throw form is beyond broken, he won’t even shoot a jump shot, and he looks like a far cry from the electrifying inside-outside talent scouts drooled over in college.

It’s become clear that Fultz is playing through some sort of shoulder ailment that is hindering his production.

But the 76ers and Fultz himself haven’t had a consistent message regarding his status since his shooting troubles started to begin this season. After this week’s mixed signals, no one knows what’s really going on with the rookie point guard. Maybe not even Fultz himself.

Reputable ESPN news breaker Adrian Wojnarowski — arguably the best in the business — quoted agent Raymond Brothers saying Fultz had his shoulder drained of fluid in early October.

“Markelle had a shoulder injury and fluid drained out of the back of his shoulder,” Brothers originally told ESPN. “He literally cannot raise up his arms to shoot the basketball. He decided to try and fight through the pain to help the team. He has a great attitude. We are committed to finding a solution to get Markelle back to 100 percent.”

Fultz had the shoulder drained prior to start of the regular season, which caused him to miss the end of the Sixers’ preseason schedule, Brothers said.

This explanation would have made sense. You need your shoulders in order to bring your arms above your head, which is a fundamental part of shooting a basketball. Fultz hasn’t attempted a single three-pointer in four regular season games and the majority of his shot attempts have come in or around the paint.

This is the same kid who made 52 of 126 three-point attempts in college.

Just a few hours after Wojnarowski reported the fluid drainage, Brothers made an amendment to his story. Fultz never had fluid drained from his shoulder. Instead, he had fluid injected into it.

“He had a cortisone shot on Oct. 5, which means fluid was put into his shoulder -- not taken out,” agent Raymond Brothers told ESPN on Tuesday night. “My intention earlier was to let people know that he’s been experiencing discomfort. We will continue to work with (Sixers general manager) Bryan Colangelo and the medical staff.”

There’s a big difference between draining fluid and a cortisone shot — the former is far more serious than the latter. The 76ers confirmed to SB Nation 76ers site Liberty Ballers that Fultz would continue to play while receiving treatment.

Why did Brothers amend his earlier statement?

On Wednesday afternoon, General Manager Bryan Colangelo addressed the media to announce Fultz has what the 76ers are calling “right shoulder soreness.” Colangelo said Fultz would be out for, at least, the next three games and would be re-evaluated next Tuesday after the 76ers play the Mavericks.

But the press conference didn’t end there. Colangelo suggested that Fultz’s injury may have come from the fact that he decided to shift his shooting form — a decision Colangelo says Fultz made on his own.

It’s still unclear exactly what is wrong with Fultz’ shoulder and how injured he actually is. It’s also unclear whether Fultz tried to change his jumper before the injury, like the 76ers saying, or whether that’s just a cover for their medical staff — at the expense of their first overall selection. (This tweet is in response to Brett Brown saying Fultz “absolutely” tried to change his jumper on his own.)

Ben Simmons sat out his entire rookie season with a foot injury, but Philadelphia didn’t concede his condition was season-ending until after the All-Star break.

As a matter of fact, there was optimism in the building.

Later, ESPN’s Chris Haynes reported that Simmons’s foot was completely healed in January. A month later, general manager Bryan Colangelo announced Simmons would not play all season.

The same confusion happened with Joel Embiid last season, too.

The 76ers’ star suffered a minor tear in his meniscus in January, but while the 76ers told him he would be out for extended time, they reported him as day-to-day to the public. Embiid was then allowed to play in a critical national television game against the Rockets before being shut down for good thereafter.

“I wasn’t happy with how it was kind of handled before,” Embiid said, according to Matt Lombardo of NJ Advanced Media. “As far as the day-to-day. I was told that I was going to miss like three or four weeks. So, I wasn’t happy with the way it was handled.”

Last March, then-Liberty Ballers editor-in-chief Kyle Neubeck explained in great detail how the 76ers have handled injuries poorly for more than a decade. This dates back to acquisitions of injury-prone players like Chris Webber, Elton Brand, and Andrew Bynum, but also includes several more recent examples of ailments that kept players out longer than expected.

Neubeck acknowledged that it’s impossible to dole out specific blame for any one party because personnel has changed and injuries happen. But he did note that trainer Kevin Johnson has been the one common link throughout, having been with the team since the 2003-04 season.

Neubeck concluded with the following statement:

Luck is a much bigger factor than people realize in staying healthy, but organizations like the Sixers pay people a lot of money to extract and protect every ounce of luck they can. You can only chalk it up to the difficulty of reading MRI results so many times before people are tired of excuses.

Maybe. We may never know the true severity of Fultz’s shoulder injury. But as long as Philadelphia keeps putting him on the floor with visible discomfort, he won’t play to his full potential.

At this point, a healthy Markelle Fultz is all 76ers fans want.