SALT LAKE CITY. Lauri Markkanen walks in a blue collared shirt and jeans of the same color to the front of his home arena from the parking area intended for players. The 213-centimeter Finnish figure is complemented by off-white sneakers.
Flash lights blare as the Utah Jazz media team snaps pictures of each player entering the arena. This is Markkanen’s last home game of the season. Up against the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic starring the Denver Nuggets.
Markkanen has to watch the game from the side of the bench, because a wrist injury caused by a hard fall a couple of weeks ago has kept him on the sidelines from the actual action. The biggest star of the Utah Jazz would have liked to play, but the wrist is still too sore.
For the first time in Markkanen’s NBA career, all the pieces fell into place. He scored a handsome 25.6 points per game for the Utah Jazz in 66 regular season games. The Jyväskylä native grabbed 8.6 rebounds per game, which is the second highest in his career.
– I myself think that there is room for improvement. However, I have to be satisfied with how much I have improved since last year. I’ve also learned a lot as a player. However, the team’s success was not what I would have hoped for. We showed everyone that our group has a lot of potential for big things in the future. This has been the funnest season of my career, Markkanen says in an interview with Urheilu.
Head coach: “I’d be lying if I said I knew what was to come”
For Markkanen, the situation was anything but funny when it was revealed to him on the last day of August that he would not return to the ranks of the Cleveland Cavaliers after the European Basketball Championships, but would continue his career in the jersey of the Utah Jazz.
The script for the best NBA season of Markkanen’s career was written in Berlin and Prague, when he led Susijeng to the quarterfinals of the European Championship with his great performances.
The same pace also continued in Jazz’s shirt since the beginning of the NBA season.
Lauri Markkanen scored the most points in the autumn European Championships, with an average of 27.9 points per match. In average, only the Greek terror Giannis Antetokounmpo (29.3) was ahead.
Mättö continued in the NBA. For example, at the beginning of January against Houston, Markkanen set his single-game points record, 49.
Utah Jazz rookie head coach Will Hardy openly admits that he didn’t know how good a player the team got in the trade for the club’s former superstar to Donovan Mitchell.
Markkanen’s talent has been known in basketball circles for years, but only glimpses of it had been seen in the NBA in the jerseys of the Chicago Bulls and Cavaliers. The biggest reason for this was Markkanen’s casting. In both teams, he was used only as a long thrower.
In the Utah Jazz shirt, everything was perfect.
– I don’t. I could never have believed that things would get to this point. None of us believed that Lauri would play at this level. We hoped that he would develop during the season and have a good season. I’d be lying if I sat here and said I knew what was coming. We are really happy that we got Lauri, and I’m not just talking about the player but also the person, says head coach Hardy in an interview with Urheilu at Jazz’s training center.
It is easy for an outsider to sense that there is a deep mutual respect between Hardy and Markkanen. After the interview with Urheilu, Hardy steps back onto the floor of the training center wearing a hoodie with the picture of the Finnish player.
Hardy’s shirt is printed with the cover of the legendary basketball magazine Slam, which was published just a few days earlier. Markkanen graced the cover of the magazine together with his teammates by Jordan Clarkson with.
According to Hardy, it is completely natural that Markkanen only blossomed at the age of 25. The Finn moved to North America about seven years ago. Already in the college team of the Arizona Wildcats, he had to face high expectations as a basketball player.
Nowadays, Markkanen knows perfectly who he is as a player.
– We have also been lucky with the timing. This has been the right time for Lauri in his life and career. We have tried to help in every possible way and at the same time we have stayed out of the way. I have said publicly many times that 50 percent of the time I try to help Lauri and the other 50 percent I try to stay out of the way, says Hardy.
– You have to let Lauri be Lauri. He has to show and teach us who he is as a player and what he can do on the field. We have not wanted to tie Lauri to any role, but he has been allowed to show us what he is capable of.
More glory after the season?
And what he is capable of, Markkanen has truly shown the audience that follows NBA basketball.
Jyväskylä’s greatest achievement was, of course, selection in the starting five of the All Star match of the Western Conference of superstars LeBron James’s, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic mixed And Morant’s with.
Although the Jazz’s season ended with the regular season, Markkanen’s curriculum vitae may be completed after the season. He is a likely name to win the MIP award, i.e. the most improved player during the season. The toughest contender in the competition is the Oklahoma City Thunder Shai Gilgeous-Alexanderwho has been the league’s fourth-hardest scorer in the regular season with an average of 31.4 points.
Markkanen’s victory is supported by the fact that he jumped to superstar status in the NBA only this season, while Gilgeous-Alexander has made a strong mark in the league for a few years already.
Markkanen improved his own point average during the season by no less than 10.8 points per game. In the 2021-2022 season in the Cavaliers jersey, the Finn averaged 14.8 points. In the middle of the mountains of Salt Lake City, Markkanen scored 25.5 points per game for the Jazz.
In addition to all of this, it is not at all impossible that Markkanen’s name could be found in the five stars announced after the season.
Suomalaistahtih takes a very moderate approach to possible awards.
– That sounds good. I hope that happens too. I don’t prepare for the season with the idea that I want to get certain awards. Many things have to fall into place for such a season to even be possible. It would be great if you could get an honor from there after the season.
– At the same time, I also realize that I can play even better. It gives me more motivation for the future.
Markkanen has also experienced the brutality of the NBA in times when the game was not played in a Chicago Bulls shirt. In the media, he has been painted several times as a lost promise who never lived up to the expectations that were placed in his direction.
During this season, Markkanen has silenced all critics.
– I have heard those doubts during my career. I would clichédly say that I am a very critical critic of my own game and I wanted to show myself that I can play at this level. That was the biggest motivator for me.
NBA champion in five years
One of the biggest changes in Markkanen’s rise to star player has been the fact that he has not played two bad matches in a row this season. This speaks of essential mental toughness.
According to head coach Hardy, Markkanen’s competitiveness and inner fire towards winning drive the whole team forward.
– Lauri is tough. He is not only physically strong, but also mentally. The teammates see how hard the opponents take Lauri physically, and he doesn’t complain to anyone. To be a star player in the NBA, you have to be able to play at a high level every night, not just when the games are on national television.
– The level must remain the same on a dark and cold winter evening, in the middle of a guest tour, even if there is not much of an audience. In this matter, Lauri has taken a big step forward in his career, says Hardy.
Where do you see Lauri in five years?
– Of course. He can’t leave me, dammit, says Hardy with a laugh.
Hardy said that he has spoken with Markkanen together about where the team’s goal is set – to win the NBA.
– We are trying to build something permanent here, the only goal of which is to win. I believe that Lauri’s development will continue in the same way, that he will continue to be an All-Star level player and that he has the potential to be in the NBA’s All-Star Five at the end of the season. At the end of the day, we want to build a foundation so that we can succeed as a team, and Lauri has a similar view on the matter.
– We want to bring the championship to Utah.