Lauri Markkanen was not the centerpiece of the package the Jazz received in the Donovan Mitchell blockbuster with the Cavaliers. However, in his first regular-season week with Utah, Markkanen has played like a star, Sarah Todd of the Deseret News writes. In the first three games, he averaged 24 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists, all career-highs.
“It’s a good fit here,” Markkanen said. “I’ve tried to stay active and aggressive on both ends every time I come out there. It’s a good start, but we’ve still got to keep learning and keep getting better.”
We have more from the Western Conference:
- Josh Hart‘s contributions are a big part of any Trail Blazers success, according to Damian Lillard. “He’s a winning teammate,” Lillard told Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian and other media members. “The way he plays the game. He plays hard. He’s physical. He does everything that you ask him to do. He’s got his teammates best interest. He communicates.” Hart’s $12.96MM salary for 2023/24 is non-guaranteed but he holds a player option and could choose to become a free agent.
- Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had a colorful response when asked about the team’s latest addition, Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News tweets. Charles Bassey was signed to a two-way contract on Monday and Jordan Hall was waived. “Management wants me to look at him, so I’m going to look at him,” Popovich said of Bassey.
- Michael Porter Jr. has shown a greater commitment to playing defense, Nuggets coach Michael Malone told Mike Singer of the Denver Post. “I’m on him a lot about his defense, but I think being a coach in a leadership position, you also have to reward them when they’re doing things correctly and build the confidence up,” Malone said, adding “right now what he’s showing me is that he cares.”
I truly started to appreciate Markannen’s game when with the Cavs. He showed more aggression and played with more confidence. He’s on the verge of his first allstar appearance imo.
Yeah, he started out great in Chicago, and then was just misused terribly by Boylan, which I feel ultimately led to his exit…
It was a shame, because when Lauri is confident he will not only make his shots and get his fair share of rebounds, but he can also do a little driving and scoring or kicking out and finding open teammates.
The only thing that I’ve seen that keeps him from becoming a true stud is just consistency. He tends to go through some lulls with his shot, but if he can learn to continue to impact the game in other ways while his shot isn’t falling, he can really blossom into a star.
He’s a very solid player that’s been underrated even as he is now. I just hope he can finally get the credit he deserves shining in Utah..
I strongly feel like it should have been pretty obv how talented this kid is like the 1st time you see him. There’s a reason he was top10 in the draft. He’s very agile & skilled for his size. His weaknesses have also always been pretty obv to see almost everytime he was out there. At Zona & in Chicago he struggled to hold his own down low against stronger guys. He produced to an extent at Zona & always projected to be a big time scorer/shooter as a stretch 4 if only he’d get stronger which every nba player does over time. He continued to get bullied alot & was a negative defensively which ended up effecting his confidence as a scorer/shooter in Chicago so chose to go with a stronger kid in PWilliams which pushed Lauri to Cleveland. JB turned him into a big3 last season which eliminated alot of his issues as far as having to bang with stronger bigs all game. Like so many guys in this league getting to a good situation, 1st in Cleveland & now an even better 1 in Utah is really all Lauri ever needed. He can focus on what he does best which is score
@Sankara
I never said I was shocked about his ability. I was pleasantly surprised about his aggressiveness and conviction when going to the rim and not just being an outside shooter.
josh hart is no surprise here. always was passed up by bigger names with weaker games.