One way or another, the Utah Jazz have to make trades to capitalize on Lauri Markkanen.
The Utah Jazz are a bad basketball team and no one can really deny that right now. The team is 2-5 through their first seven and they just look ugly. The defense is terrible, the offense is selfish and head coach Will Hardy looks utterly confused at times when he’s putting out his lineups and rotations. He still thinks Talen Horton-Tucker and Jordan Clarkson are a winning pair.
That right there should concern people, but after seeing that duo fail time and time again, Hardy keeps going with it. And therein lies the problem. The Jazz has Lauri Markkanen, a Top 25 player in the NBA and someone who is streaking towards his second All-Star game. He’s not old, just 26, but he’s too old to keep if you’re planning on doing a full tear-down and rebuild.
But he’s young enough to be the centerpiece of any team pushing for the playoffs. That said, he can’t do it on this team with this lineup. This is a team that needs to make massive trades, and Jazz beat writer for KSL, Ben Anderson, agrees. So much that he believes the Jazz will trade for help around Markkanen.
Lauri Markkanen is going to expedite the @utahjazz rebuild because he's so good, you can't simply waste seasons by not surrounding him with high-level talent.
— Ben Anderson (@BensHoops) November 5, 2023
And the hope is the Jazz does just that, but will they? The season is already getting away from the team, and it’s time to make moves to salvage this season. Sure, it’s only seven games, but this is a team that doesn’t work as constructed. We don’t need to see two more weeks of this, let alone two months.
The time to make moves is now. Salvage this season. Or, don’t. And instead, just trade Markkanen now while he’s got as much value as possible. It’s not the direction the Jazz should go, they should do everything possible to keep Markkanen and build around him. But this isn’t a team run by fans, it’s run by Danny Ainge and we don’t know the direction he’s going to go.
So the Jazz either need to start making moves to build around Markkanen, or they need to make moves to capitalize on Markannen’s value. Either way, the time to do either is now.