The conventional wisdom around the league has been that Utah would look to trade Lauri Markkanen at the February trade deadline. He is a 28-year-old All-Star-level player averaging 27.9 points and 6.3 assists a game this season, who is not on the timeline of the young stars they are rebuilding around. Also, a lot of teams could use him (hello Detroit!).
Except Utah may hold on to him and try to start winning sooner rather than later, Marc Stein reports in his latest Stein Line substack missive.
Difficult as it can be for rival teams to read the intentions of a front office that now houses Austin Ainge as well as Danny Ainge, more teams than not that we speak to are increasingly convinced that the Jazz are more likely to try to add to their Markkanen-led core this Trade Season rather than trade Markkanen away. Markkanen is averaging a career-high 28.5 points per game in his ninth season to build on a monster national team summer for Finland. It’s true that the 28-year-old has still yet to log a single playoff minute in the NBA, but he unabashedly loves Salt Lake City. There is a strong case to be made, once you take it all in, for building around the 7-foot Finn.
A few quick thoughts on this:
• If a team were going to trade its biggest star at the deadline, this is exactly the vibe they would want to give off to maximize leverage. While it is definitely possible that ownership is pushing the front office to win more now and not all-out tank, I’m just saying (as Stein noted) that reading the intentions of Danny and Austin Ainge is next to impossible.
• How good is Utah, really, even with an addition or two? At 6-13 on the season, Utah sits 11th in the West as of this writing and is 1.5 games out of the final play-in spot. Promising young center Walker Kessler is out for the season. Even with a healthy Markkanen, breakout player Keynote George continuing his hot play, rookie Ace Bailey growing and improving over the course of the season, and a role player addition or two, is this team more than the No. 9 or 10 seed in the West? Is that what they should be pushing for, because….
• Utah owes its first-round pick to Oklahoma City, but it’s top-eight protected. If the NBA Draft Lottery were today, the Jazz would be ninth heading in, with a 79.7% chance of losing their pick entirely (and enriching the 20-1 team at the top of the standings). Is making the play-in worth giving up a chance at a high pick in what is considered a deep draft at the top? Look, we remember how Jazz fans and team owner Ryan Smith felt after last season’s draft lottery, where they had the worst record in the league and fell to fifth.
Still, this is a rebuilding team, and what it needs is more young, high-level talent on the timeline of Kessler and Bailey, and the draft is how Utah is going to get that. Trading Markkanen, getting into the top eight is the path to that.
We’ll see which path the Jazz take, but apparently holding on to Markkanen is on the table.
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