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For the most part, Utah Jazz players intend to spend a lot of time in Salt Lake City this summer, preparing for the 2026-27 season. That’s pretty normal and tracks with how the Jazz players have preferred to train in-market.
They’ll also take breaks, traveling to their home states, going on vacations with family and friends and training at other locations. But outside of the normal training plans, I thought I’d update you on the three most interesting offseason plans from Jazz players.
First up is Lauri Markkanen, who will be in-market until his kids are out of school, then he plans to go back to Finland and play for the Finnish national team in 2027 World Cup qualifying games. Those matches will be in the first week of July.
Next, we have Jaren Jackson Jr., who is going to need to spend more time locally than some might think. He wants to do a lot of conditioning in Utah so that he can use his acclimation to the altitude as a weapon during the regular season.
But, there’s also a logistical side to this. He said he needs to get a house and set up a home here. It’s that simple. Midseason trades often put players in really transitional situations where they’re in temporary accommodations and need time to get things settled.
Finally, we have the winner for the most interesting offseason plans and goals — two-way player Blake Hinson. Hinson said that he will obviously take part in the usual offseason plans of training and fine tuning his game, but with an added twist.
He wants to land a modeling gig.
Hinson is really proud of the transformation his body has gone through since college and he’s done a little bit of modeling in recent years, but he figures that if he’s aiming to get his body lean and cut in the way that would be necessary to have brands interested in him, it will be extra motivation to get into that kind of shape for basketball.
When talking about the offseason goal, Hinson described himself as having been “the fat kid” before getting to the NBA. He then said, wouldn’t it be something if people who had known about him before said, “Oh, now he’s Blake the model?!”
That would be something! So here’s to hoping for success for Markkanen in Finland, success for Jackson in setting up a home base in Utah, and to Hinson landing some offseason modeling work.
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