The Utah Jazz helped Lauri Markkanen unlock his offensive potential, becoming the kind of star they can build a new foundation around.
Lauri Markkanen scored 49 points against the Houston Rockets on Thursday night, a new high in what has been a stellar season from start to finish. He led the surprising Jazz, forcing them to reconsider their dramatic rebuilding plans, averaging 24.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game, on 52.9/42 shooting spreads, 0/87.7.
Some fans may have given up on ever seeing such a leap forward from Markkanen, but this emergence is more than just individual development. He has undoubtedly improved in a number of areas, but the Jazz have also shown incredible skill in putting him in a position to succeed.
What are the Utah Jazz doing differently with Lauri Markkanen?
Markkanen was often relegated to a static spot-shooter role in Cleveland’s offense, and spot-shots made up nearly 40 percent of his possessions. This season, that figure has dropped to 22.3%. If he is still as effective on spot-ups, it is partly because he is more aggressive when attacking closeouts.
Markkanen still isn’t creating a ton of offense for himself outside of dribbling, but he’s averaging 4.6 drives per 36 minutes (almost twice what he did last season at Cleveland) and he shoots 56.1% on drives.
More importantly, Utah created a lot more opportunities for Markkanen to move around the field, rather than just standing around waiting for the ball to be tossed to him. Last season at Cleveland, 15.8% of his offensive possessions came from cutting, dribbling, off-ball screens or as a screener in the pick-and-roll. This season, that percentage has increased to 26.2% and he ranks in the 69th percentile or better in efficiency in all three types of play.
Actions like simple pin-downs get him out of the corner, on the move, and put him in advantageous scoring situations against defenses that are already catching up.
The combination of his 3-point shot and his size is the most viscerally appealing part of his game, but Markkanen’s touch is just as useful inside the arc and those kinds of actions allow him to lend a hand. operate in many more places in the field. Two-point shots make up more than half of his shooting attempts for the first time since his sophomore season in Chicago and improving his shooting percentage from 16 feet is the biggest change in his shooting profile this year.
Markkanen has gotten stronger over the past two years and his ability to take a hit and finish over defense with his length is better than ever (also notice it’s almost exactly the same single check as this -above).
He also leveraged that strength to become better and more strategic and attack lags in isolation (averaging around one per game and ranking in the 97th percentile of scoring efficiency).
Markkanen is not quite an individual attacking powerhouse in the frontcourt like Kevin Durant or Giannis Antetokounmpo. Just throwing the ball to him and asking him to fetch a field goal a dozen times a game isn’t going to be a recipe for success for the Jazz. But by getting him moving and putting him in a wider variety of scoring situations, Utah has helped him be much more than the big, static player moving around the field that he was in recent seasons. Clearly, he has improved, but the structure the Jazz have put in place around him has unleashed his full potential.
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