All good things must come to an end. Having lost five games in a row, the hot start that the Utah Jazz got out to this season seems to have fully cooled off. They came out of the gates storming with an unlikely amount of synergy, and peeled off 12 wins in their first 18 games. They were considerably better than everyone expected, including those who expected them to be better than everyone else expected.
The same growing pains that it was thought they would inevitably hit, though, are seemingly finally here. But on the plus side, Lauri Markkanen has shown no sign of cooling off.
Markkanen has been playing more like Finland Lauri than NBA Lauri. That is to say, the Jazz have been giving him an expanded role on the offensive end, just like the Finnish national team do. Markannen is by far the most talented player in Finnish basketball, and so when he plays for his nation, he is empowered to do more than he has hitherto mostly been in the NBA. Clearly enjoying his new style and new level of play, he has become a go-to guy for the Jazz in a way that he never was in either Cleveland or in Chicago.
- Find me @MarkDeeksNBA on Twitter, or email me at mark.s.deeks@gmail.com. For more of my stuff, try https://linktr.ee/markdeeks. For less of my stuff, go outside.
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