The fans have spoken. Despite weeks, if not months of going back and forth over what to do with Lauri Markkanen, be it trade him or offer him a contract extension. Now, granted, the Utah Jazz and Markkanen will have to agree to an extension and if not, they’ll trade the Finnish superstar. Yet, if all things are equally possible and the Jazz wants to trade Markkanen and Markkanen wants to come back, the debate has been about which one of those two scenarios should the team follow through with.
Right now, the franchise is leaning towards extending Markkanen, but the fanbase as a whole has been split on the concept. So split, that SLCDunk posted a poll, asking fans to vote for which scenario they’d rather see; build around Markkanen as the future or trade him and the fans were loud and clear; keep Markkanen. Build around the Finnisher and go for the playoffs.
Now, we the media and the fandom at large have no real control over what the Jazz do, so even though the poll is calling for the Jazz to extend Markkanen and push for the playoffs, that may not be what the franchise does.
After all, we were told that they were going to try and compete this prior season and that wasn’t what happened. At all. So now we’re left wondering if we can actually believe anything that the front office has to say. They claim they’re going to try and land a major player for the franchise this offseason, but are they? Will they? They may try but how hard are they really going to try?
The team is depleted on talent right now, having traded a lot of their best role players at the trade deadline and doing everything they can to try and coach up the rookies they acquired in the 2023 Draft. Right now, it hasn’t led to a lot of positive results, but there’s still possibilities here.
The Utah Jazz need all the help they can get around Markkanne, so if they’re going to extend him, they better be willing to put players around him to help.