You can’t really blame folks for not watching Utah Jazz games these days, with the team’s record at 13-40 — but there’s a consistent question I get from those people.
What’s up with Lauri Markkanen?
The former All-Star’s shooting percentages (and as a result, his points totals) are down this year.
Lauri Markkanen's stats over the last three years, from Basketball Reference.
The Jazz just gave him a five-year, $238 million extension, so there’s understandable worry about his production. Have the Jazz made a franchise-changing mistake giving a lot of money to a mediocre player? A recent popular Reddit post called him “one of the worst contracts in the NBA.”
But a closer look at the situation reveals what’s going on: Markkanen is using this season to experiment with his game, taking harder shots than ever before.
“We’ve been working on, like, not getting just wide-open catch shoots all the time,” he said. “I’m trying to shoot more contested threes. Lightly contested, from behind dribble handoffs, and when they’re lazy switching. Stuff that I haven’t really shot before.”
It’s true. Markkanen has taken about one fewer wide-open jump shot per game, per NBA tracking data, replacing that with about one more contested shot. Visually, Markkanen’s much more eager to take shots he wouldn’t have last season, even from a few feet beyond the 3-point line.
Markkanen, and the Jazz, think that practicing those types of contested shots now will pay dividends in future years, when playoff defenses get tougher. Perhaps they can use Markkanen like a tall Klay Thompson or JJ Redick, coming off of screens and getting looks off from anywhere on the court.
It’s a concept that he worked on in combination with Jazz head coach Will Hardy.
“Lauri and myself have had a lot of conversations over the last nine months about ways that he can improve. I think that he’s taken that challenge really well in terms of trying to generate those threes off the catch, and we’ve slowly dripped in some of the iso stuff around the elbow and the free throw line,” Hardy said. “I think he’s handled it great, because there have been moments where maybe he’s not making as many as he’s used to or as he would like, but he recognizes that big picture, this is what’s best for him and for us going forward.”
Hardy also noted another way in which Markkanen was sacrificing: the team’s spacing picture. For much of Markkanen’s first two seasons with the Jazz, they played with five-out spacing thanks to centers who can shoot, John Collins and Kelly Olynyk. This season, nearly all of the Jazz’s minutes have been played with a traditional center in the paint, either Walker Kessler or Drew Eubanks — which means Markkanen is at the rim less, earning fewer rebounds and dunks.
“I was very honest with Lauri, that some of the four-out stuff early in the year was going to be beneficial for our young players to build a foundation, and that was ultimately going to help him more in the long run,” Hardy said.
“But he had to make some sacrifices for that — what was best for the group in the moment wasn’t necessarily best for him individually. That speaks to who Lauri is, the type of person he is, the type of teammate he is," the coach continued.
Some of Markkanen’s willingness to sacrifice for the bigger picture is likely due to his contract’s security. Being locked up for the next five years, he can feel more confident in investing in the franchise’s future overall, even if it hurts his stats in the short term.
So he’s not worried about the downturn in individual production, even if outsiders are.
“I think the numbers will even out eventually,” Markkanen said on Wednesday, before scoring 32 points in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers.
