SALT LAKE CITY – Welcome to the Utah Jazz mailbag, where this week we take a look at where Lauri Markkanen might land on the franchise’s all-time greatest players list.
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Mailbag: How high can Markkanen climb on the all-time jazz list?
You @BensHoops Mailbag question for you: Now that we have Lauri signed long-term, where do you think he will rank on the all-time list of Jazz players, assuming he plays out his entire contract?
— Alex (@AEC_PA) 27 August 2024
Question: Now that we have Lauri on a long-term contract, where do you think he will rank on the Jazz’s all-time list of best players, assuming he plays out his entire contract?
Answer: Let’s start by looking at Markkanen’s ranking in our Jazz 50 list, published last summer, where local media Members have voted about the 50 greatest jazz musicians of all time.
After just one season in Utah, Markkanen had already moved up to 17th on the list, ahead of contemporaries like Mike Conley and Jordan Clarkson, but behind fellow former Jazz All-Stars Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur and Gordon Hayward.
What those All-Stars had that Markkanen has yet to achieve is postseason success. Hayward led the Jazz to a road series win over the Los Angeles Clippers, while Kirilenko and Okur helped lead the Jazz to the Conference Finals despite neither being a top-two player on the team.
Related topics: Utah Jazz – the 50 best players of all time
Assuming Markkanen spends the next five years of his career in Utah, where he is under contract, I can expect him to make at least one more All-Star appearance and try his hand at the playoffs, if not win a few series.
Add those two things to his resume and I think Markkanen will easily take the spot as the tenth best player in Jazz history.
It’s getting harder to get into the top nine.
- Charles Malone
- John Stockton
- Pete Maravich
- Adrian Dantley
- Donovan Mitchell
- Rudy Gobert
- Deron Williams
- Mark Eaton
- Carlos Boozer
All nine players stayed with the Jazz for an extended period of time, made multiple All-Star appearances, received end-of-season awards, were selected to the All-NBA or All-Defensive team, or were successful in the playoffs.
But that doesn’t mean that the list is impenetrable.
Lauri Markkanen’s 49 points are by far the most @utahjazz Player in the regular season since Karl Malone in April 1998.#Notes | @kslsports
pic.twitter.com/M7JkKYN6dN— Ben Anderson (@BensHoops) January 6, 2023
Donovan Mitchell is the fifth-ranked player on the list (I believe he should be behind Gobert) thanks to three All-Star appearances, but never made it past the second round of the playoffs.
Markkanen could easily make two more All-Star appearances over the next five seasons and, with a little postseason success, would have a record that rivals Mitchell’s.
It’s also worth noting that unless Markkanen misses a significant number of games or his performance drops, he would likely become only the fifth player in Jazz history to score 10,000 points in Utah, ahead of only Malone, Stockton, Dantley and Darrell Griffith.
He also became his team’s all-time leading three-point shooter and currently ranks fourth all-time with 24.5 points per game over two seasons.
And to top it all off, he’s already one of the Jazz’s most efficient players, making plenty of shots from the field, three-point line, and free throw line while never losing possession.
Lauri Markkanen shooting on the move from 7’0 pic.twitter.com/quJp6gaCR4
— Brett Usher (@UsherNBA) July 3, 2024
With that in mind, things can only get better for Markkanen and he should continue to climb up this list.
One reason Markkanen may not end up among the Jazz’s top five players of all time is that for the postseason success that will ultimately be measured by him, the team may need another future top-five franchise player on the roster to make it deep into the playoffs.
This could establish Markkanen as one of the best players in franchise history over the next five seasons, but not as the best player on his own team – if Jazz fans are lucky.
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Ben Anderson is the Utah Jazz Insider for KSL Sports and the co-host of Jake and Ben from 10am-12pm with Jake Scott on 97.5 The KSL Sports Zone. Find Ben on Twitter at @BensHoops or on Instagram @BensHoops.
