On Monday afternoon, Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen received the NBA’s Western Conference Player of the Week award for the first time.
On Monday evening, Markkanen received one of the best compliments you can receive in the NBA.
That came from Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle ahead of the night’s matchup between the Pacers and the Jazz. Carlisle, the 22-year veteran coach who headed up the Dallas Mavericks for 13 seasons, compared Markkanen to his best-ever player, Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki.
“He’s a great, great young player,” Carlisle said. “He’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Nowitzki.”
Markkanen proved him right during the game, shepherding the Jazz to an easy 132-105 rout of the Pacers. Despite sitting out of the fourth quarter, Markkanen scored 32 points on efficient 10-15 shooting, plus added 10 rebounds. In general, Markkanen is playing his best basketball at the moment, and it’s been a huge part of what has carried the Jazz to a six-game winning streak.
The Nowitzki comparison
Nowitzki, remember, was a 14-time All-Star, 2006-07 MVP, and a 2011 NBA champion. He ranks sixth on the NBA’s All-Time scoring list.
So what leads Carlisle to make the comparison?
“(He’s) a 7-footer that can really stretch the game out and play inside. He’s underrated as an athlete. And his length is really special and the efficiency with which he catches the ball and gets rid of it, shoots it — he just like catches it up here and just goes like this from like anywhere,” Carlisle said, while miming Markkanen’s shot form. “People have tried to put bigger guys on him, smaller guys on him, he shoots over the smaller guys, he’s out-crafts the big guys.”
“So, he’s tough. He’s a much tougher player than what you may think looking at him. He’s tall, slender, angular, but he’s rugged. So he’s a major, major problem.”
It’s not just Markkanen’s recent success, though, that led Carlisle to think highly of the Finnish forward as a player. Carlisle said that, during the 2017 NBA Draft, the Mavericks really liked Markkanen and hoped to draft him — only to be selected at the No. 7 slot, two picks above where the Mavericks owned No. 9.
“We were hoping for some way he would have fallen to us at nine. But after we worked him out it was pretty clear to me that it was unlikely to happen because athletically he tested much better than expected,” Carlisle said. “Much more powerful, much more — all those different metrics.”
Markkanen reading the defense
But Carlisle gave credit to Jazz head coach Will Hardy for putting Markkanen in good on-court situations to succeed, as the reason why his career has taken a further leap in Utah.
“Will’s a super creative offensive coach, and they do things that are completely different than the entire league is doing because of Markkanen’s abilities,” Carlisle said. “And that’s how it was in Dallas too, we were doing things with Dirk because there was no one else like him.”
What’s Carlisle talking about? Essentially, it’s how Hardy puts Markkanen in off-ball situations in which he can either screen for others or become the attacker himself — and frequently, he has the option of cutting outside for a three or cutting inside for a layup or dunk.
Maybe the most basic look that shows this off is the early shot clock flare screen. Essentially, someone sets a screen on Markkanen’s man as he pops out for a wing three. Here, he and Collin Sexton talk as the ball crosses half court, Markkanen looks like he’s going to be screening for Dunn but instead is screened for himself for a wide open three. Simple.
But the NBA is not dumb, and by now opponents know Markkanen likes to do this. So watch the Lakers’ Taurean Prince on this play from the previous game — he’s ready and jumps all the way outside to prevent Markkanen from getting the open look. Ah hah!
Except Markkanen just stops his cut short, Kessler flips the screen... and he’s just as open as he was in the basic look of the play.
Pretty good, you might say... but what if the defender knows both of these wrinkles? Here, the Pacers’ Andrew Nembhard reads both the cut and the shortcut, and John Collins’ screen isn’t great either. But have no fear — Markkanen can now just turn this into a pick and roll. Because both Pacers defenders are so worried about Markkanen, Collins’ roll to the rim is open, forcing help... and Markkanen sees right over it to hit Sexton for a corner three.
“As defenses have adjusted to him... he’s learning how to use that aggressiveness against them,” Hardy said. “Not just for himself, he’s learning how to use that aggressiveness to help his teammates get shots as well. It’s a big part of the evolution of Lauri — he’s doing things now that he wasn’t doing last year.”
Is Markkanen an All-Star again?
Even just two weeks ago, Markkanen looked unlikely to be named an All-Star. After all, the Western Conference remains loaded with frontcourt players. Generally, six frontcourt players are named to every All-Star team, plus two wildcard players.
Markkanen is averaging 23.7 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game this season. By most all-in-one metrics, six frountcourt players are definitely above Markkanen: Nikola Jokic, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard. Those players have also played in more games than Markkanen, who has missed 10 games this season.
That likely means Markkanen would need to be one of the wildcard spots, but he’s facing stiff competition there too: Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert of the Wolves, De’Aaron Fox or Domantas Sabonis of the Kings, Chet Holmgren of the Thunder, Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson of the Pelicans, Kyrie Irving of the Mavericks, and Jamal Murray of the Nuggets are all contenders for those spots as well.
So it’s going to be an uphill battle. Really, the only way that Markkanen can make the team is to continue having weeks like he just had with the Jazz — pushing them higher in the standings and his numbers higher as well.
“I think it can get it, I’ve just got to keep grinding. It would mean a lot obviously,” Markkanen said. “Winning games is what helps us, so I’m just doing trying to do my part to get us there, and hopefully I get in. It would definitely be a big thing for me.”
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