There are tiers of NBA players when it comes to a scouting report. There are the players at the top of the scouting report, players in the middle, and then there are players that nobody pays any attention to.
“My favorite part about Lauri is that over the last two-plus years, as the respect for him has grown, so has his learning.”
— Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy
I once saw two players get into a heated argument during a game. As one of the head coaches steered his player away from the potential altercation, he told his player, “Don’t pay attention to him, he doesn’t (expletive) matter.” And he meant it. That player wasn’t a good shooter and he wasn’t a good defender, so in the eyes of the opponent, he was not worth thinking about, much less getting into an argument with.
That’s not what any NBA player wants. They want to be hunted, studied, researched, thought about. They want to be the player that coaches plan for. They want to be at the top of the scouting report.
That’s where Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen finds himself. This is his third season atop opposing scouting reports. Someday that distinction might not be difficult for Markkanen and he might be ready for everything that is thrown at him. But this season is completely different from the ones that preceded it.
“Lauri is going to get game planned for in a way that he never has,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “It’s been a steady progression since he got here. I think the game plan started off as being sort of for him, and then he had a good year, and he was an All-Star. Then we felt like, ‘Oh, wow, they’re really game planning for Lauri more.’ And this year, I would expect it to be even more than that.”
Why more? Well, the Jazz’s roster is younger and more inexperienced than ever before. Teams have been sending multiple defenders at Markkanen for a couple of years now, but when they look at the Jazz roster today and see three rookies, three second-year players and two more players that are just 23 years old, they’ll figure they can probably leave some of the younger players alone in order to give more attention to Markkanen.
It’s the kind of situation that has the potential to cause headaches. It could be so difficult to overcome that it could cause frustration. But that’s not the way Markkanen sees it.
“Instead of looking at it like ‘Oh, it’s difficult,’ it’s like, that’s what you work for,” Markkanen said. “You get the respect and that brings being double teamed and stuff. So I try to enjoy it. That’s really gonna make me a better player.”
But, as Hardy likes to point out, getting better, growing and developing is not linear. There are going to be days when things get harder and it feels like steps are being taken backward rather than forward. When Markkanen is being guarded by three players and he’s not able to get a shot off and it’s late in the shot clock and he’s got teammates who aren’t familiar with those circumstances and it seems like there’s no way out of the situation, Markkanen probably isn’t going to feel like he’s getting better.
When Markkanen is getting bumped off his spots, played more physically than ever before, leaving games with bruises, cuts and worse, feeling like he can hardly move, he might feel like he’s just getting beat up, not like he’s growing or developing his game.
“But it’s so good for him,” Hardy said. “You have to think your way through the game. And I think that Lauri is fully capable of being really productive, even if teams are game planning for him at that level. We’ve got to help him.
“I’ve got to put him in some better spots at times ... that stuff’s going to continue to grow. But I think this is really good for Lauri, because he’s going to see such a variety. And you see other top guys in the league, once they’ve felt all those things for a certain amount of time, then they’re really used to it. They kind of have in their head, ‘if this, then that.’ They know what the counters are based on how they’re being guarded. I think Lauri is building that now.”
“You get the respect and that brings being double teamed and stuff. So I try to enjoy it. That’s really gonna make me a better player.”
— Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen
That’s not the only thing that Markkanen is working on.
Hardy has been clear about the priority of the season being on development. And understandably, people hear that and think of the younger players on the Jazz roster. But that also includes Markkanen.
Early on in the 2024-25 season, the Jazz put a big emphasis on Markkanen trying to punish switches. It’s something that they’ve worked on a lot during practice going back to last season and have tried to use it more in games this season. They want Markkanen to recognize when he has a smaller defender and to use his length and strength against that defender.
That’s the kind of thing that could result in easy baskets for Markkanen, but it could also wear out the defender and draw more defenders over, making Markkanen a secondary playmaker, looking for the open man who has been left by the help defender.
“Lauri is at his best when he’s on the move,” Hardy said. “But we feel like for him, for us, moving forward, trying to add that to his game is going to be really important for us. And he knows that means, in the short term, certain things are going to be sacrificed.”
One of the things that has been sacrificed in order for Markkanen to work more on punishing switches and because of the way that he’s been defended this season (namely being top-locked at every opportunity) has been his movement.
He is a player that thrives off the ball and in motion. He is an incredible 3-point shooter, especially in catch-and-shoot situations. This season, 100% of his 3-point makes have been assisted; last season, 98.2% of his 3-point makes were assisted. When he’s not moving as much, coming around screens and the like, it’s not as easy to get the shots that are the bread and butter of his game, which is why his 3-point attempts are down this year.
Markkanen’s attempts and efficiency at the rim are also down this year. Rather than cutting for lobs or using that movement to find open spaces under the basket, sometimes he’s getting the ball at the nail or elbow and trying to find new ways to score. But more importantly, he’s getting the ball rather than cutting. Playing on the ball is new for Markkanen.
“A lot of the stuff that he was getting on the rim in the past is him cutting,” Hardy said. “When we play off ball actions, because of his size, he’s a big target. So when he gets momentum cutting to the basket, he’s a real threat.”
It’s a threat that teams are trying to take away, but also one that the Jazz haven’t been going to as often, in an attempt to broaden Markkanen’s game.
“It’s a challenge,” Markkanen said. “I always go in with the mindset to try not to get frustrated with something new that I’ve never really done before. So I try to enjoy the challenge. It’s not going to be perfect every night, a lot of times to be end-of-shotclock shots that are not the easiest ones, but just working on it and getting better.”
And that’s the key. The point of all of this is to make Markkanen better.
In Hardy’s eyes, it is a privilege for Markkanen to be at the top of a scouting report and it is a gift that they have the time and support to be able to add things to his game. Though the path to greatness is not one that is straight and easy to follow, it’s one that he believes Markkanen can traverse.
“My favorite part about Lauri is that over the last two-plus years, as the respect for him has grown, so has his learning,” Hardy said. “He’s learned along the way, ‘OK, now I’m being guarded like this,’ or ‘now I’m seeing this coverage a lot more. This is how I can combat it.’ And that doesn’t mean that the first time you see it, the very next day, you execute it perfectly, but he’s shown the ability to learn and improve during a season.”
