When you’re evaluating the best player on a tanking team, things start to get really murky, and there’s a lot of grey area where with other players things would look more black and white.
That’s where we are with Lauri Markkanen in his third season with the Utah Jazz, a team that wanted so badly to lose as many games as possible, that the best player on the team played just 47 games and the team was fined by the league for their handling of Markkanen and the injury report.
Statistically it was a down year for Markkanen, but is he really to blame? And, how much should we pay attention to the stats in a tanking year for this caliber of player?
Lauri Markkanen — B+
Let’s get the ugly numbers on the table right off the bat. It was the lowest overall shooting performance (43.3%) for Markkanen in his career and the second-worst 3-point shooting season (34.6%). Compared to last season, his points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks were all down.
But, let’s talk about the reality of the situation. Every time that Markkanen played in a game for the Jazz this season, the opposing team had a clear and obvious player that they could zero in on. Who cares about shutting down Isaiah Collier and Keyonte George when you can just focus your efforts on the lone All-Star on the roster.
But, there was also some motivation on Markkanen’s side to not only not try his hardest, but also to work on some new stuff that might not work out and see how he would fare in some really difficult spots.
Markkanen knows the score. He knows what the front office is doing, he knows it means that he is not going to be in the playoffs in the immediate future and he knows that he is in a really unique situation where he can work on his game and try new things out during the regular season rather than save all the work for the offseason in non-live rep scenarios.
And, for what it’s worth and for whatever reason, Markkanen believes in the Jazz’s vision and willingly signed up for more of it. He didn’t have to. He could have asked for a trade, he could have walked away. But he really likes Utah, he really wants to be here and really wants to see this thing through.
There are absolutely players on this roster where improvement, effort and performance matter. It is important to see if some of these young players have what it takes to hang with the rest of the NBA ranks. And sure, it would be nice to see some different and new stuff from Markkanen, but it‘s not a one-to-one comparison.
I find it really difficult to say that Markkanen had a bad season because of any sort of decline. Instead, I would characterize his season as a raw deal from a playing standpoint, and that he took advantage of his time on the court as if it was an extended offseason. If anything, I think that’s smart considering the circumstances.
The real evaluation for Markkanen will be when the Jazz aren’t clipping his wings two months into the season and when he’s flanked by players that can not be ignored by the opposition.
