In a conversation with Sam Amick of The Athletic, forward Lauri Markkanen made it clear he hopes to remain with the Jazz. An All-Star for the first time in 2022/23, Markkanen also won the Most Improved Player award in his first season with Utah.
Markkanen’s name has popped up in recent trade rumors, though rival executives expect him to stay put. He’s on a very team-friendly contract, making $17.26MM this season and $18.04MM in 2024/25.
Here are a few highlights from Amick’s interview with the Finnish star.
On the team’s slow start (Utah is currently 9-17 after going 37-45 last season):
“I try to look at the big picture. Obviously, we haven’t had the easiest start to the year, but I think it’s about keeping that long-term mindset in mind and trying to get better every day. Of course, we want to win every game, but even when you lose I think there’s things that we can learn and get better at. It’s not the easiest start, but everybody’s being positive still and working on the team stuff and individually as well. We just have to try to get more together and hopefully, we can grab a couple of these wins.”
On Salt Lake City:
“Oh, yeah. Love it. So we’d like to be there. We like the environment. It’s a pretty comfortable place to be.”
On dealing with trade rumors:
“I’ve been traded, I guess, technically three times with draft night included. Sometimes I knew about it. Sometimes I didn’t. So I kind of learned the business side of basketball. I’ve kind of learned to just go day by day and really put the work in and try to play to the best of my abilities and whatever happens happens, really. Like I said, I love being in Utah and it’s a compliment of what you’ve done in the past (that teams have interest). We’ll see. But yeah, I just want to emphasize that I really believe in what we’re building here with the Jazz. Go day by day. Do your best. That’s all you can do.”
The interview is worth reading in full for those who subscribe to The Athletic.
Best contract for an all star … Warriors should try to get him
Exactly what Golden state needs. I’m over looney. Yeah he stays on the court but can’t rebound and can’t score. They need to start Dario instead
Would Jazz even want Kuminga or Moody? Do Warriors even have picks to provide since Wiggins likely needs to be attached?
Just spitballing since I am not even thinking of fit. Jazz will want picks in a trade for their best player.
Knicks needs to get rid of Fournier for something so he can be part of the deal with Grimes. and picks.
Magic Wendall Carter or Fultz been out most of the season, the team has played well.
Nets Simmons and picks
OKC if they want to move Giddey and Bertans
Jazz would be fools to trade Markkanen.
As expected, Markkanen says all the right things. What else is a humble guy like him supposed to do?
But he’s also emphasized in past interviews that he wants to compete in the playoffs. And the Jazz are going to tank for a few more years. Would Markkanen be OK with getting no shot at playing meaningful basketball until he’s 30 years or older? Would he be content with finishing an All Star career without a single playoff game on his résumé?
Markkanen is currently merely the third option behind Utah’s scrub guards. Sexton, Horton-Tucker and Clarkson frequently all take more shots than him. And Danny Boy and Hardy seems perfectly fine with it. Danny Boy has turned the franchise into a mess.
Should Markkanen really believe in Danny Boy’s aimless wrecking job, then he’s either hopelessly naive or an unsalvageable idiot.
Sexton has played really well lately. THT has his moments. Clarkson has been on drugs or something all season though. He had 1-2 good games and the rest has been crazy town.
But you’re right. Markkanen needs the ball the most. He also needs to keep focusing on getting assists, too. Everybody should continue to move the ball like they have lately.
That nonsense again about Markkanen needing to dish out more assists.
How can he assist others without even touching the ball? He already receives far too little passes as the clear No. 1 option. He is Utah’s best player by a mile and surrounded by scrubs, who wouldn’t sniff the starting lineup on a halfway decent team. Why should one of the NBA’s most efficient players pass the ball, only for the opportunity to be wasted by one of the notorious chuckers?
Markkanen has proven, since playing college ball at Arizona, that he can be an elite passer. But with the Jazz being a mess without direction, sharing the ball with riffraff teammates on one of his rare touches doesn’t make any sense.
Sexton will always be a chucking ball hog, who only cares about his own stats. In the blowout loss to the Kings he recorded a +/- of -27 while putting up 28 PTS and 1 lousy AST. Markkanen was the only starter with a nearly neutral +/- of -2, while getting only 13 shots, compared to Sexton’s 18. If you don’t care about winning, then Sexton should be your man.
Tht is awful , there’s no other way to view him
He will be on a vet min next year and probably lucky tu even get that opportunity
He’s actually a perfect guy for a ranking team , those % play well !!!
The Jazz don’t really want to trade him. So they set a high price to calm down the calls or tempt another struggling team to pull the trigger.
I’d personally keep him with the understanding that sometimes he needs to sit for extended periods of “maintenance”. =)
If LM really wants to stay in UTH long term, then he’ll need to indicate that he wants an extension. Ainge seems committed to tanking, and might pass on it anyway. But as long as LM hasn’t indicated he wants an extension, UTH has to treat him like a 2 year deal. By all accounts, Ainge is certainly tanking this year and next, so that means a trade at some point, probably sooner rather than later.
Because of the amount and structure of LM’s existing deal, a market extension prior to the end of the contract might require cap space, but UTH has or can get that space fairly easily. I think Ainge would do it. He’s a tanker, but not a shameless one. He won’t make it an endless exercise. LM is a piece that have value beyond Ainge’s tanking window; more value long term than another set of draft picks.
Word from Utah now is that Ainge intends to tank at least until the 2026 draft. In the most optimistic scenario, including the highly unlikely drafting of several future All Star players, it’ll still take at least another two to three years for the Jazz to become competitive. That would be somewhere around 2029 and near the end of Markkanen’s upcoming max contract.
Why would the Jazz want to keep a max player around for years of tanking? And why would Markkanen waste the prime of his career with a garbage franchise and never sniff the playoffs until he’s 32 years old?
You wouldn’t for the actual tanking years for sure. Might even usher in something toxic, like too much winning. But, if they really plan to start trying to win in 2026-27, and then actually contend a few years later, then they can’t do a full-on tank until 2026. The pathologies unleashed by that level of tanking won’t clear the roster in 1 year or even 3 years. Ainge who has a long history with tanking knows this, or should. An endless tanking cycle he orchastrated in the early 2000’s nearly ended his FO career before it really got started.