The Philadelphia 76ers kicked off the 2021-22 season last night with a win on the road against the New Orleans Pelicans. Joel Embiid, Furkan Korkmaz, Tyrese Maxey, and Tobias Harris all scored 20+ points and the new-look offense was honestly a breath of fresh air without Ben Simmons.

The game remained relatively close into the fourth quarter, before the 76ers bench stepped up and helped the Sixers pull away with a 117-97 victory. A big part of that push was Furkan Korkmaz. Kork caught lightning in a bottle and exploded for four three-pointers. He finished the night 7-for-11 from the floor and 4-for-4 from beyond the arc with 22 points and five assists.

After the game, Kork spoke with the media and talked about his fourth three pointer that he hit, which again, all happened in the fourth quarter in a span of two minutes and 11 seconds.

“I knew that I was gonna shoot that. I saw Tyrese in the corner but I was like, ‘I’m going to shoot this’ because I was feeling it.”

I mean how can you not love this guy? Probably my favorite video from Furk is when the 76ers were in the bubble and he hopped on the Matisse Thybulle content train and filmed an episode of him walking around the Grand Floridian. Check it out here. But to get back to the question and the sole purpose of this article, we’re here to speculate whether or not Korkmaz is actually a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Religious beliefs aside, the similarities are daunting. Shout out @SaggyKnees on Twitter, who brought this to our attention in a reply tweet to Furkan. Now, I can’t stop looking at it and feel the sudden urge to grab a bible and say a few “Hail Marys” to cleanse my soul.

The picture on the right is a portrait of Jesus that some robot made incorporating what “we know” of his ethnicity and culture for time and region. I have no idea what any of that means but when you put it next to Furkan’s 2021 headshot its basically the same person. Is it possible that Furkan is Jesus? I mean, yes it definitely is possible. Anything is possible really. Just look what happened to Ben Simmons, I don’t think anyone thought he would turn into that big of a baby so quickly yet here we are.

After a quick Google search of “Is Jesus Turkish?” this is the first article that popped up.

Clearly I’m not the only one searching the possibility of Furkan Korkmaz actually being Jesus. This article was from July 2021 and speculates that Jesus was Turkish and talked about a resurgence of Pseudo-Turkology. I have no idea what any of that means of course, the only Turkology I know is that of Furkan Korkmaz. I learned that from his offseason hype video. The theory goes on to explain that multiple leaders from Jesus to literally Barack Obama are actually Turkish. As we all know Furkan is already Turkish, so thinking that he’s the next coming of Jesus Christ doesn’t really seem that crazy anymore now does it?

We are already living in a world where Ben Simmons refuses to play basketball for the Philadelphia 76ers. Now, we’re one game into the 2021 NBA season and Furkan Korkmaz is a bright, shining star on the 76ers. If Furkan Korkmaz can remain consistent and shoot lights out like he did tonight, the 76ers will be just fine and I will 100% start going to church and completely buy in to Turkology.

The Sixers will face the Brooklyn Nets on Friday for their 2021 home opener. So far so good. Let’s keep it rolling.

Pop the Kork.