The Utah Jazz have made it clear that they believe Lauri Markkanen should be a core member of the team for the foreseeable future. However, he's not some young, blossoming talent. He is what he is, and the team trying to win now means they want to make the most of his prime while they can. That's why their initial struggles are frustrating.
It's not just that they're losing. These losses are already piling up, wasting more of Markkanen's prime than they already have over the past few years when they were tanking. There's no need to panic because slow starts happen, but the schedule won't let up on the Jazz anytime soon.
If it's clear the season is heading south, the Jazz can't exactly throw it away, because then they would be in a prime position to give a lottery pick to the suddenly phenomenal Memphis Grizzlies. The Jazz still have plenty of games left to reverse course, but if it's clear the vision of the team isn't working, Markkanen may hit the market.
If he does, Utah should be able to get a haul similar to what they got for Walker Kessler, which gives them options for what to do next. For everything that has gone wrong to start for Utah, their youth movement has proven to be quite promising.
They'll try to fix themselves first before Markkanen trade
The 2026-27 season isn't even a month old, so the Jazz don't have to think about any changes period, let alone the prospect of trading Markkanen. Parting ways with Markkanen is more or less the nuclear option for Utah. It's much likelier they will try to acquire more help before they think about trading the Finnisher.
They will probably look into adding more rim protection and more consistent scoring in the second unit before they decide to make such a drastic change. Outside of their blowout losses to Memphis and Portland, Utah has been in every single game until the very end.
Very few teams ever pull the plug on a player like Markkanen that quickly. They often look at other options first until they realize they are out of options. That is, as long as they don't take too much time. For example, Milwaukee took too long to trade Giannis Antetokounmpo, and look where that got them.
Utah only has to think about this when it's clear they have exhausted all options, which is months down the line from now. But all this losing makes it harder to ignore.
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