Lauri Markkanen’s feet might be the key to his shooting success

Lauri Markkanen has always been a good shooter. He was a 42% 3-point shooter in college. He was compared to Dirk Nowitzki before he even started his NBA career. He was the seventh overall pick in the 2017 draft.

Turns out that being a 7-foot forward with the shooting prowess of a guard is a hot commodity.

Frankly, he probably could have had a really good career if he didn’t change a thing. But “really good” isn’t good enough for Markkanen.

So, as the game has changed and as his role has changed, so too has his shot.

A lead role

It’s not a secret and it’s well documented what Markkanen’s career was like prior to joining the Utah Jazz.

He spent four years with the Chicago Bulls as a third option, largely as a spot up shooter used to space the floor.

In his lone season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, his game started to open up a little bit. But it wasn’t until he arrived in Utah that he was given freedom to explore all parts of his game.

Jazz head coach Will Hardy saw that Markkanen was the No. 1 option with the Finnish national team. With a rebuilding team, Hardy felt he had the perfect opportunity to see what Markkanen was capable of with a larger role.

Well, it took no time at all to see that Markkanen was the best player on the Jazz roster.

It wasn’t just the Jazz that noticed Markkanen was the best player on the team. Every opponent quickly realized that he was the guy that deserved defensive attention.

As Markkanen’s role on the team grew, so too did coverages and scouting reports. He had to adapt to teams making a point of slowing him down with pressure and physicality.

As a way to combat the defense, Markkanen has played with more movement than ever before. He’s coming off screens, setting screens, popping, cutting, relocating and doing things that he never did prior to joining the Jazz.

Solid base

With all of the changes regarding his role, the way he was playing and how he was being guarded, one of the things that would serve Markkanen was a quicker shot release.

But from the waist up, Markkanen had already had a pretty impeccable and fast shot. His form and mechanics didn’t really need change.

“It’s more about the legs,” he said. “I’m not really changing anything on my upper-body form. But I think just having my legs ready, and I’ve added the no-dip three, where I’m not putting the ball down.”

In years prior, there were a lot of times when Markkanen would catch the ball and drop it down a little before getting into his shooting motion. Not only has he cleaned a lot of that out of his shot profile, but he’s also worked really hard on changing his base.

Markkanen now makes sure that his feet are set and his knees are bent before he gets the ball. And when he shoots, there’s more lift and it’s from a more stable position, allowing him to land evenly.

“I think that the guys with the quickest releases, the reason for that is they have the quickest assembly with their feet,” Hardy said. “The area that I feel very confident that Lauri has improved is his footwork on the perimeter to assemble and get shots off.”

The changes that Markkanen is making is not about efficiency. He has and will probably always be a great shooter.

But in order to deal with the defensive attention, and to be ready for every kind of shot that could be available — considering the fact that his teammates are always trying to get him the ball — it was necessary to make a few tweaks.

“There are times where he gets a few off quicker than I’m used to, like he’s showing the ability to get shots off in really tight areas, which I think bodes well for him and for us,” Hardy said.

He continued, “But he works really hard on it. ... He works really diligently on a variety of footwork to assemble himself on the perimeter. He knows that we’re going to put him in a variety of spots, and the types of assembly he’s going to need to get shots off in all those situations is going to be different. So I do think he’s really grown as a perimeter shooter.”