Could Lauri Markkanen be the Brooklyn Nets’ missing piece?

According to Sam Quinn of CBS Sports, Lauri Markannen could leave this summer and not return to the Utah Jazz, especially since the 2023 first-time All-Star’s contract expires in 2025. Last season, Markannen scored an average of 23.2 points. and 8.2 rebounds on 48% shooting from the field with 40% accuracy from downtown.

With the 27-year-old as the number option this year, the Jazz finished with a 31-51 record, missing out on the playoffs as the 12th seed. In the 2022-2023 season, Utah again finished as the twelfth seed, but was just one game back of the 2024 Western Conference Champions Dallas Mavericks and three games back of the first-seeded 2023-2024 Oklahoma City Thunder. That’s quite a ask for Markannen to keep the Jazz afloat as the number one option alongside more youthful players, which makes it all the more interesting to see how he would fare alongside the Nets and their more experienced players.

Right now, the Jazz forward is in one of the elite categories of players who averaged at least 20 points on at least 40% shooting from three. The spacing of Markannen in Brooklyn’s starting lineup would be impeccable. This is exactly the player the Chicago Bulls were looking for all along when they traded for him on draft night, but he wasn’t quite there yet when he arrived to the Bulls.

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