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Keeping Lauri seems increasingly pointless

I find it interesting how people on this board always know exactly what deals were on the table for our players at the time. Rumors are rumors. Generally, even when a deal is consumated, it falls short of the expected "deal" that fans were expecting.

We really don't know exactly what the deals were for Lauri or if Lauri would have agreed to sign with a new team if traded. I do know the Jazz haven't been big about swallowing albatross multi year contracts. The renting cap space business has been greatly reduced by the new CBA, so I think the Jazz have played that correctly.

Additionally, the Jazz have a pretty clean salary sheet, a slew of young players, and still have years of trade assets. They have also pulled this off without alienating a majority of the fanbase.

I just don't get the doom and gloom.
 
bigmike said:
He's 22, has elite two-way potential, fits our alleged "positional size" mandate perfectly, and there's no way the return would be just Kuminga. I'm sure we'd insist on at least 1-2 unprotected firsts during a window where GSW could be really bad.

Maybe he has an attitude problem, I don't really know. He might just need a change of scenery and a real chance at consistent minutes. He came into the league as a really raw player and joined an aging nucleus that was trying to win now - pretty much worst case scenario for his development.

Markkanen also floundered for 5 years until Hardy and co. unlocked his game here. That's worked out pretty well for us.
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I don’t think he has elite 2 way potential at all. Great athlete. Fairly one dimensional, zero subtlety and depth to his game. Mediocre shooting. And I really really don’t want someone who is very much about himself
 
rippimpc said:
If we had cleared the decks in the Wemby draft, I think we would have ended up with one of Wemby, a Thompson twin, Brandon Miller, or Scoot. Then in 2024, we’d likely have landed one of Sarr, Risacher, Sheppard, Castle, or Holland.

Best case, we’d have Wemby and Castle.

Worst case, we’d have Scoot and Holland.

In reality, we ended up with Hendrix and Williams.

I’m not sure how the pick value would have netted out if we had traded our guys then vs. now, but it seems pretty clear we would have gotten more back at that point.

Honestly, I’d probably rather have the worst case (Scoot and Holland) than Hendrix and Williams, especially with Williams looking like a bust right now. Plus, we’d have more picks.
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It's hard to say. Imagine if we wound up like Detroit, dropping to 5th in both drafts and winding up with Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland. Meh. Imagine if DA's gamble paid off and we landed Wemby and could pair him with Markkanen. We will never know.
 
framer said:
I find it interesting how people on this board always know exactly what deals were on the table for our players at the time. Rumors are rumors. Generally, even when a deal is consumated, it falls short of the expected "deal" that fans were expecting.

We really don't know exactly what the deals were for Lauri or if Lauri would have agreed to sign with a new team if traded. I do know the Jazz haven't been big about swallowing albatross multi year contracts. The renting cap space business has been greatly reduced by the new CBA, so I think the Jazz have played that correctly.

Additionally, the Jazz have a pretty clean salary sheet, a slew of young players, and still have years of trade assets. They have also pulled this off without alienating a majority of the fanbase.

I just don't get the doom and gloom.
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Well said. People are too quick to play the blame game. It has always been like that. Fans criticize GMs and front offices without knowing the context and details behind the various decisions they make. Also, in hindsight, we know what has happened after their decisions, but we couldn’t have known that at the time they were made. I’m not saying GMs don’t make mistakes, but the criticism they get from fans is often BS.
 
The Midnight said:
Don't ever group Lauri with Collins… we basically got Collins for free and he’s still worthless.

You’re grouping a Mercedes and a Suzuki.
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stathead.com

John Collins (2025-2025) vs. Lauri Markkanen (2025-2025): Head-to-Head Stats Comparison | Stathead.com

Compare Players: Check out the head-to-head stats of John Collins (2025-2025) and Lauri Markkanen (2025-2025) including their awards, honors, championships, playoff and regular season stats, and much more on Stathead.com
stathead.com stathead.com

Must be a really old Mercedes and a really new Suzuki then!
 
Last edited:
No reason to force anything. Aside from tanking.

As long as Lauri doesn't interfere with that, you let him recoup his value if there isn't a good offer available right now. Which there doesn't appear to be.

But if we're going to tank via roster construction like it sounds, & appear to have already started doing, I do think at least one of Lauri or Kessler will need to be traded. And we may still have to trade Collins on top of that depending on how our young core looks.

Personally, I'd prefer to recoup LM's trade value vs committing significant long-term money to Kessler as his skillset is easier to replace & his trade value is likely much closer to it's peak.

Also, the removal of his skillset may actually have as much or possibly even more of an impact on our ability to organically tank.

Maybe we can get away with keeping both by just trading Collins & banking on our young core to struggle out of the gate. But I'm not sure it's worth risking missing out on finding a potential 2nd star to pair with Bailey. Especially not in such a loaded draft class when we're a single season away from retaining our draft pick entirely.

Ideally, a great offer comes in for Lauri. But if not, I hope we don't move him just for the sake of it unless it's completely unavoidable in order to preserve a top 8 pick for next year.
 
The Midnight said:
You’re really compare their tanking season stats?
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That’s their most recent season isn’t it? Players are never instructed to tank that’s the organization’s problem anyway. Career comparison is pretty much a wash 7-6 (can’t pull it up right now) Mercedes to Suzuki give me a frickin break. You’re right about one thing though, Collins is improving and Markkanen is trending backwards.
 
Isaiah 1:13 said:
That’s their most recent season isn’t it? Players are never instructed to tank that’s the organization’s problem anyway. Career comparison is pretty much a wash 7-6 (can’t pull it up right now) Mercedes to Suzuki give me a frickin break. You’re right about one thing though, Collins is improving and Markkanen is trending backwards.
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You really think Lauri was going at 100% this past year?

Lmfao
 
people foaming at the mouth wanting to trade Lauri is perplexing. He's a high end NBA player, low maintainance. And he actually wants to stay in Utah long term. And if Ace is really good quickly and / or next years draft pick is really good, you still need other really good players. He's not that old, there's players like Curry etc etc who are playing at a high level a decade older than what Lauri is. If you move him you just kick everything down the road significantly further
 
FalseFlagg K said:
people foaming at the mouth wanting to trade Lauri is perplexing. He's a high end NBA player, low maintainance. And he actually wants to stay in Utah long term. And if Ace is really good quickly and / or next years draft pick is really good, you still need other really good players. He's not that old, there's players like Curry etc etc who are playing at a high level a decade older than what Lauri is. If you move him you just kick everything down the road significantly further
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Ace is extremely raw and many years away.
 
FalseFlagg K said:
people foaming at the mouth wanting to trade Lauri is perplexing. He's a high end NBA player, low maintainance. And he actually wants to stay in Utah long term. And if Ace is really good quickly and / or next years draft pick is really good, you still need other really good players. He's not that old, there's players like Curry etc etc who are playing at a high level a decade older than what Lauri is. If you move him you just kick everything down the road significantly further
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Stockton was 34 when the Jazz finally made it to the finals. Jazz are looking to compete after this season. I don't see us adding a bigger free agent than a 28 year old Lauri Markkanen or a 24 year old Walker Kessler. A 28 year old John Collins at a reduced salary wouldn't suck either.
 
framer said:
Stockton was 34 when the Jazz finally made it to the finals. Jazz are looking to compete after this season. I don't see us adding a bigger free agent than a 28 year old Lauri Markkanen or a 24 year old Walker Kessler. A 28 year old John Collins at a reduced salary wouldn't suck either.
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Given Lauri's very extensive injury history, I would bet against Lauri being very good in 4 years when Ace and their 2026 pick might be good.

(I also hate the Lauri-Ace fit long-term as your two max guys even if the timeline worked out, 55%+ of your cap going to guys with no playmaking is pretty brutal)
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
Given Lauri's very extensive injury history, I would bet against Lauri being very good in 4 years when Ace and their 2026 pick might be good.

(I also hate the Lauri-Ace fit long-term as your two max guys even if the timeline worked out, 55%+ of your cap going to guys with no playmaking is pretty brutal)
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1 you might want to see Ace play for a while first. 2. The cap going up significantly will probably see Lauri's contract look less daunting
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
Given Lauri's very extensive injury history, I would bet against Lauri being very good in 4 years when Ace and their 2026 pick might be good.

(I also hate the Lauri-Ace fit long-term as your two max guys even if the timeline worked out, 55%+ of your cap going to guys with no playmaking is pretty brutal)
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Yeah, if Ace is getting a max extension, we are likely in business and will have a lot of options in front of us, especially if Lari is commanding another Max as well. 4 t 5 years is an eternity in the NBA. Planning more than two years out is a fool's errand.
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
Given Lauri's very extensive injury history, I would bet against Lauri being very good in 4 years when Ace and their 2026 pick might be good.

(I also hate the Lauri-Ace fit long-term as your two max guys even if the timeline worked out, 55%+ of your cap going to guys with no playmaking is pretty brutal)
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the lineup of Lauri, ace, Hendricks, Kessler and collier is going to be brutal to watch but perfect for the tank.
 
Agent#00 said:
the lineup of Lauri, ace, Hendricks, Kessler and collier is going to be brutal to watch but perfect for the tank.
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Collier: Please, I'm begging you, just make the extra pass, come on guys, don't abort the set early.
Ace/Lauri/Collins/Keyonte/Clayton Jr/Svi/Kind of Hendricks/Kind of Kessler: The possession ends here
Cody: If you pass me the ball, I will piss myself and then vomit.

This is not a very talented passing team other than Collier, Filipowski, and Nurkic.
 
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