Breaking: Utah Jazz Confirm Three Stars To Be Traded Ahead Of Deadline

Breaking: Utah Jazz Confirm Three Stars To Be Traded Ahead Of Deadline

It’s a great time to start the mailbag because the NBA Finals are in progress, the 2024 NBA Draft is less than three weeks away, and free agency begins less than a month from now.

I want to start off today by discussing a subject that I believe needs some direct and forthright discussion: the league’s interest in Lauri Markkanen.

Markkanen has been identified in a number of recent reports as a potential target for other teams. It is critical that you focus on the actual content of such reports when reading them. The vast majority of these Markkanen-based stories are only suggested trade concepts based solely on their appealing concept. Those are essentially meaningless. Everybody can suggest transactions that will never take place.

Then, there is a second type of story that has come out — the interest from other NBA teams. These stories say that teams not named the Utah Jazz are interested in Markkanen, that teams not named the Utah Jazz believe the Jazz will listen to offers and then they ultimately say that the Jazz are likely to offer Markkanen an extension. My reaction to those claims is, ‘yeah, obviously.’

Lauri Markkanen is a player that precisely twenty-nine clubs (not including the Utah Jazz) would kill to have on their roster. With the ability to score up to 25 points a game on average without the ball in his hands, this versatile 7-foot player scores 40% from 3-point range.

It’s no secret that the Jazz are open to receiving bids. In the NBA, there are very few “untouchable” players, and aside from them, all teams are open to considering offers for any player. That is the way it is throughout the NBA.