Earlier in the week, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Bob Brookover wrote a column titled, "Risk and price too high for Markelle Fultz" that included this lovely lede.

I confess that I have never seen Markelle Fultz play a basketball game and I was not at his 76ers workout Saturday in Camden. Still, it is hard to stamp a seal of approval on what the franchise is about to do.

Let's just say not many Sixers fans went on to read the remainder of the column.

Fast forward to today and the folks at Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast had Fultz on as a guest to ask him about the column.

It should be noted that Fultz's first reaction is a good laugh. Then he weighs in.

"That’s funny," Fultz says. "First of all, I’m glad he wrote that. That’s a little bit of motivation for me. I’m going to prove him wrong. How’s he going to say something when he’s never seen me play?"

Love it. As we wrote about earlier in the week, Fultz is the kind of guy who thrives off of haters doubting him. So we'll likely keep a running tab throughout his career of people to add to the list, Arya Stark style.

Other discussion topics that came up on the pod included the first thing he'd buy with his new NBA money -- gifts for his mom and sister -- and his plan for the Adam Silver handshake -- "You know how people say I don’t smile, I was thinking of giving him a scary look or something."

He also prefers Geno's over Pat's and was asked, given that he's about to be drafted by the Sixers, if he's injured.

"No, I’m not injured!"

Which reminds me of that Bone Thugs-N-Harmony line: "And we pray and we pray and we pray..."