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Lauri Markkanen chuckles a bit when it is mentioned—he knows it is not a normal thing. But he has just wrapped his sixth season in the NBA and finds himself in an unusual situation by his own standards: He knows who will be his coach next year, presuming nothing outlandish happens with Will Hardy and the Jazz.
“He’s my fifth coach in six years,” Markkanen told Heavy Sports.
Indeed, Markkanen entered the league with the Bulls during that organization’s most tumultuous time in two decades, with Fred Hoiberg, Jim Boylen and Billy Donovan at the helm in consecutive seasons. He moved on to play a season under J.B. Bickerstaff in Cleveland, and was sent to Utah as part of the Donovan Mitchell trade this summer, and spent the season with Hardy, the rookie Jazz coach.
Hardy is not going anywhere. And after a season in which he averaged 25.6 points and 8.6 rebounds, neither is Markkanen. He finally has a level of comfort in Utah he never had during his tenure with the Bulls, which was marked by injury and front-office turmoil. Chicago has sent some quality players and raft picks packing in the last three years, and Markkanen is maybe the best of the bunch.
“I think the stability is the thing because I’ve had some good coaches and then had some stuff that has gone wrong,” Markkanen said. “But it’s always, obviously, a new coach comes in. It’s always a new system and kind of how you’re gonna fit into the system and stuff like that. So hopefully, hopefully we can keep this thing going on for a while.”
Markkanen also won the distinction this year of an All-Star spot in front of the home crowd in Salt Lake City, and was tabbed as one of the ambassadors of the game during the NBA’s marquee weekend. He earned an endorsement deal, too, from Starry, the new Pepsi lemon-lime drink.
He said his success this year began with Hardy, who had watched Markkanen closely during the 2022 EuroBasket tournament, when Markkanen was playing for Finland and led the team to a surprise quarterfinals spot, averaging 27.9 points (second in the tournament behind Giannis Antetokounmpo) and 8.1 rebounds.
“I think the biggest thing Will told me was the first day I got to Utah was that whatever I was doing back home with Team Finland in EuroBasket, he wanted the same version of Lauri to be in Utah. I think that was the biggest thing he told me. I had not had a coach tell me that before, in Chicago or anywhere.”
It’s fitting that Markkanen’s time with his home team was so productive, because he is now serving for a different Team Finland–the Finnish military, as part of his obligatory service.
Waiting on Ben Simmons?
Speaking after his Nets were eliminated from the playoffs in a sweep by the Sixers, Nets GM Sean Marks hit the brakes on the notion that the team would look for a quick turnaround on its rebuilding efforts following the Kyrie Irving-Kevin Durant disaster.
“I don’t think we’re in any hurry,” Marks said. “We’re not going to be pushed to make changes just for the sake of making changes.”
The Nets have 11 first-round picks in the next seven years, and have solid tradeable assets on hand, like wing Dorian Finney-Smith, big man Nic Claxton and young scorer Cam Thomas. What they don’t have, though, is a star player they can send out in a deal, thanks to the ongoing absence of guard Ben Simmons, acquired from Philadelphia last year in the James Harden deal.
If Marks is not in a hurry to get the Nets back into contention, it’s likely because he wants to get Simmons back on the floor to generate some kind of value.
“They’ll be looking for a scorer, a true No. 1 option,” one Eastern Conference GM told Heavy Sports. “We’ll have to see who becomes available but they will get in the mix, if it is (Damian) Lillard of it there is someone else coming into the market—Pascal Siakam, they would have to have interest there.
“But they’re not going to get that level of player with just picks, without giving up talent. And they need to get somebody to believe that Ben Simmons can still be a star. That’s not going to be easy, you know.”
The chatter about Damian Lillard to Brooklyn keeps heating up, but the GM said there’s more smoke than fire right now.
“Portland will have better offers in a trade if they go that route,” the GM said. “Now, if Dame goes to them and wants to go to the Nets, that might change things. But other teams can outbid Brooklyn with the pieces they have.”
Emoni Bates Draft Outlook
Eastern Michigan scorer Emoni Bates never lived up to the billing as, “The Next LeBron James,” when he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 15, and scouts rank him with only a slim chance of getting a spot in the first round of the 2023 draft, for which Bates has formally declared. It could be just as likely that Bates is not drafted at all.
He did not help his cause much with an arrest before the start of the college season on a gun charge and the fact that EMU went only 8-23 during his one season after transferring from Memphis. But some personnel folks hold out hope for Bates.
“He is 19 and he has the talent, he is a scorer for sure,” one scout told Heavy Sports. “The pressure that was put on him at an early age, he was just not built for it. LeBron was built for it, Kobe (Bryant) was built for it, but we have seen a lot of guys who just weren’t. Emoni wasn’t.
“But he could still play in the league. He needs to go to a situation where you could break him down a little bit, get him to accept being a role player, get him to show some effort on defense, get him to pass the ball, and rebuild him from there. But for most of us, that takes an investment that we might not be looking to make in a second-round guy, or an undrafted guy.”
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