Lauri Markkanen starred Utah belongs to the five best teams in the NBA. The win column is no less than 6–2.
Hardly anyone in Finland or North America would have expected such a dream start.
Let’s rewind just two months. Markkanen found out about his trade to the Utah Jazz the night before the European Championships, when he was playing the shooter game Call of Duty with his Susijengi teammates. The deal came as a complete surprise to the Susijeng star. It was quite a shock.
Yahoo Sports recently told (you are switching to another service), how the Finn had ended up walking the night streets of Prague with his national team coach after the news. There was something to chew on in the situation.
Markkanen was traded in the NBA just when he had felt at home in Cleveland.
– I believe that I will remember that unexpected trade for the rest of my life, Markkanen said to Yahoo Sports.
The media also discussed Markkanen’s new team’s chances of success without mercy.
From everything the club management did, it seemed that Utah is not looking for success this season and is looking at next summer’s booking event and super talent Victor Wembanyamaa.
On that aforementioned night in Prague, Markkanen pulled himself together despite everything. The mark was already huge in the European Championships. Markkanen hammered the ball into the basket at the pace of the world’s best players and even more efficiently.
The same trend has continued in the NBA. Markkanen and his teammates have made the contradiction that was talked about before the start of the season a reality. All they think about is the next game and winning it. They all want to take the next step in their careers.
There can be risks in such situations, but the team made up of different role players has formed into an amazingly unified whole right at the beginning of the season.
Also Will Hardy has wanted to leave his mark on the league in his first NBA season as a head coach. The game highlights the unselfishness that the 34-year-old head coach feeds. Utah now has an extraordinary number of team-first players.
It’s no wonder that even before the start of the season, Hardy was hailed as one of the biggest future coaching names in the entire NBA. The biggest star is Lauri Markkanen, who dazzled with his versatility. Now, under the leadership of the duo, the biggest sensation of the NBA’s early season has been made.
Only three superstars have been able to do the same as Markkanen
The Finn averaged 22.6 points and grabbed 9.3 rebounds in eight games. The accuracy of game situation throws has been no less than 50.7 percent.
When you put those three metrics in the same line, similar readings have been seen from only four other players in the entire league. Two of them are already familiar names from the European Championships.
Dallas is the basketball king of the NBA at the moment and has double-digit numbers in almost three statistical categories Luka Doncic and the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player of Milwaukee Giannis Antetokounmpo. The other two are the big players of the league’s elite Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid and the Los Angeles Lakers Anthony Davis.
This season at least 22 points and 9 rebounds with 50 percent accuracy on layups
Let’s turn on the team’s success. Of the teams of these five players, only championship contender Milwaukee led by Antetokounmpo has started the season better than Markkanen’s Jazz.
When analyzing the statistics even more closely, we must also remember the Finn’s three-point shooting accuracy. Known as a top shooter, Markkanen has bagged three-point shots with only 31.5 percent accuracy. It is the lowest reading of the career of Markkanen, who is playing in the sixth season in the NBA.
In that sense, the wild numbers still have the potential to grow even louder.
Gestures tell about the transformation
When you watch the highlight videos of Markkanen’s matches in the morning, the change in shape has been amazing. Markkanen has been released, and he is no longer just a three-pointer waiting for his turn in the corner of the court. Now he does a lot of everything else and has shown that he is capable of that too.
More player Utah’s ex-star About Rudy Gobert has been “on the poster” ever since, when the King of the North has been released. Markkanen has gone to the basket and dunked the ball with power through the hoop and over the defenders.
If the aforementioned comparison to four superstars was already shocking, digging into the statistics also revealed another incomprehensible fact.
This time, the Finn has donked 18 times already. Only three players in the entire league have dunked more this season. Markkanen’s transformation is underlined by the fact that he has previously, at his best, donked 63 times during one whole season (!). So now we’re already a quarter of the way through that rookie season reading.
Markkanen has made baskets since the beginning of the season also more often than last season without direct serving from a teammate. Markkanen makes baskets more efficiently, closer and more with his own individual performances.
Most dunks this season in the NBA
Obviously, Markkanen has also worked with the right things in the summer. The development on the physics side can now be seen on the floor.
And we shouldn’t forget the importance of the spiritual side either. Markkanen already spoke at the European Championships about how joy returned to basketball last season in Cleveland after the difficult times in Chicago. The shock news from the NBA on the eve of the European Championship didn’t shake in the end.
As a continuation of the great EC performances, we have now seen even more brilliance on the NBA floor. The Finn himself has told how the competition leader grew confidence in his own abilities for the NBA season.
Perhaps the best thing about Markkanen’s moves are the gestures, how he wants to show that he is the king of the field. Markkanen has been rightly arrogant on the field. He has been a team player, but has borne his responsibilities as the team’s hardest scorer.
As necessary, Markkanen has instructed his teammates and even the judges so that Utah wins. And although this text has praised attacking play, the Finn has taken steps forward even in the much-maligned defensive play.
In the early season, Markkanen has sometimes even had quite a few saves, such as four times in the previous game against Memphis. The Finnish player, who is all about dunks and blocks, is now extremely entertaining to watch by the standards of the entire league.
In star game speeches, you have to remember to be calm
In North America and Finland, Markkanen’s chances of winning personal awards have naturally been thrown into the air. The most developed player in the league and a selection for the star game. Especially the latter, Markkanen has constantly talked about as his big personal goal during his NBA career.
With such excerpts continuing, it is very possible. It is also supported by the fact that the All-Star Game will be played in February at Utah’s home arena in Salt Lake City.
In the same breath, however, we still have to put the brakes on the talks. However, eight matches is still a very small sample size.
You also have to remember to be calm with the star selection, even though it looks good now. The Western Conference is full of top players, and you can’t just walk into the group of 12 players even at these times. There are also still 109 days until the star match, so many things still have time to happen.
First of all, it will be interesting to see how Utah’s club management begins to react to their team’s surprisingly good early season. Will we see the success card under Markkanen until the end? Or will Markkanen, who has increased his market value, or someone else be traded even further, so that the positions for the top rounds of next summer’s booking event will improve?
Especially the hero back guy Mike Conley’s trading would probably have a big impact on Markkanen’s holdings. In previous seasons, especially in Finland, there has been criticism of how the playmakers in Markkanen’s teams have tried to fill their own statistical lines, and have not distributed the ball to Finnish players enough.
From this point of view, the experienced Conley has been perhaps one of the best, if not the best playmaker for Markkanen.
In addition, the Finn must of course stay healthy. Markkanen’s NBA career has been overshadowed by numerous injuries.
The season is just beginning. In his career, the Finn has also flashed in smaller clips before, but not for longer and from night to night. Continuity is now expected. Markkanen must continue to show the best version of himself every night in order to achieve the goal of the star game.