Markkanen is one of the best power forwards in basketball and only has room to climb.
Lauri Markkanen went a bit mainstream once he joined the Utah Jazz four seasons ago. As a promising but unremarkable young prospect with the Chicago Bulls, the Finnish star and former Arizona Wildcat earned his place on an NBA roster with his floor-spacing ability and off-ball scoring prowess.
He became further pigeon-holed after joining the Cleveland Cavaliers, maintaining his average as a guaranteed double-digit scorer, but hardly stirring excitement in the heart of fans or his organization.
Markkanen was traded to Utah as an add-on, with Collin Sexton arriving as the featured piece of the deal that sent Donovan Mitchell to Cleveland. But after a strong international summer, Lauri arrived in a bigger role in Utah and put the league on notice, dropping over 25 points per game on deadly efficiency, with nearly 9 boards per night on top of that.
Clutch scoring, posterizing slams, and a baseline production level so high that the Jazz struggled to lose basketball games in the first season of the franchise's ground-up rebuild. He was an All-Star starter for the Utah Jazz when the All-Star festivities were held in Salt Lake City -- that was something of a modern miracle.
But as Utah tanked more aggressively in the following years, Markkanen appeared in fewer games to avoid picking up more needless wins than necessary. From 66 games in his All-Star debut season to 55, then 46, and finally 44 games last year, Lauri has been out of the spotlight during the Jazz's age of darkness.
Many aren't even aware that he posted a career-high in points per game last season, notching 26.7 per outing -- the ninth-highest in the NBA.
But when you watch half of the season from the sidelines, people tend to forget.
It seems like Hoops Hype hasn't, though, because in their list of the best power forwards in the league right now, Markkanen ranks 10th overall -- an incredibly complementary ranking considering Utah's irrelevance for the past handful of seasons.
"Markkanen is the prototypical floor-spacing modern big man, possessing a pretty jumper and spot-up-shooting ability from the outside in a 7-foot body. The Utah Jazz, knowing they wouldn’t be competing for anything over the past few seasons, have done well to push Markkanen out of his comfort zone, asking him to do more than he’s ever been tasked with doing in the NBA."
"That’s to say, Utah has given Markkanen an ultra green light to get buckets and not just depend on the spot-up outside shooting he was so comfortable with."
The Jazz held onto Markkanen throughout their prolonged rebuild -- they view him as a fundamental piece of their future. And for good reason, he can still climb a long way before reaching his perceivable potential, and I expect him to do just that by the end of this season.
