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Lauri Markkanen Hype & Appreciation Thread

fishonjazz said:
Nice bro. Where you at? You look like you are late 20's?
I'm jelly as ****. Getting old sucks
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Tell me about it.

I started up with krav maga again after about 4 years away. Stopped just before COVID due to work and to much going on. The first few classes were hard AF and man do my bones creak. I'm loosening up a bit after a month back at it, but wow am I feeling my age, especially for something so physically demanding. But I figured it was the best way to extend my weight loss. I'm down 50 pounds now and plateaued out, so hoping mixing it up will help, but man for a while there i really felt i bit off more than I could chew.
 
Seems to be quite a media-day for Finnish military sport school. All relevant Finnish media closely following up with Lauri.
 
I'm just curious, how big of a deal is Lauri in Finland? Is this front page news there, or only basketball fans really know about him? I'm guessing that Nordic sports stars are a bigger deal than an NBA player, but maybe not.

I'm just imagining if Lebron James went in to the military for a period of time, that would be front page news for us here in the USA.
 
He's big, but I'd say still only sports big. So the leading story is the forming of the new government, not Lauri. But there were reporters from pretty much every media outlet there yesterday, it was all over the TV news and the biggest media (say, Finnish NYT/WaPo) had multiple stories on Lauri's first day, interviews with the colonel of the school etc. That will die down quickly though as there isn't that much to report on (or to gain access to shooting drills etc. obviously). Then when the national team's pre World Cup training camp starts and Lauri joins that, he'll be big again. And on the sports pages it'll be the Finnish league hockey playoffs, NHL playoffs etc. from today on.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
I'm just curious, how big of a deal is Lauri in Finland? Is this front page news there, or only basketball fans really know about him? I'm guessing that Nordic sports stars are a bigger deal than an NBA player, but maybe not.

I'm just imagining if Lebron James went in to the military for a period of time, that would be front page news for us here in the USA.
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Reading the two yellow-papers (Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti), the big news this week has been forming the new governement (especially the fact that there seems to be different views amongst the parties on how the economy of the country should be balanced after previous governement). In sports the biggest news has been that Lahti Pelicans won Tampere Ilves in the local ice-hockey semi-finals (shocker of the decade, apparently), the death of the irish rally-driver Craig Breen (rally has a BIG following in Finland), the NHL play-offs, and the fracas between Napoli football fans and AC Milan players. There was yesterday some buzz over Markkanen going to the Army, but more on the lines of "lolz, americans think going to the Army is a big thing for a finn", with links to the ESPN article and the comments seen in Twitter.

EDIT: In general, basketball is only on the front sports pages during European and World Cup, if Team Finland is in. Markkanen getting to the All-Stars game was a pretty big news though (with the articles telling how there are five players per team at the same time on the field in a basketball match, and Markkanen was one of the ten selected to get in first in the All-Stars match; you can draw conclusions from that how aware of basketball the average finn is).
 
Swuul said:
EDIT: In general, basketball is only on the front sports pages during European and World Cup, if Team Finland is in. Markkanen getting to the All-Stars game was a pretty big news though (with the articles telling how there are five players per team at the same time on the field in a basketball match, and Markkanen was one of the ten selected to get in first in the All-Stars match; you can draw conclusions from that how aware of basketball the average finn is).
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There is a difference between knowing the game rules and knowing Lauri and rooting for him. Lauri is big news and random Finns are extremely proud of him without even knowing what team and in some cases what league Lauri plays in. Basketball has gathered a huge following during the past 10 or so years but it still remains a minor sport when compared to for instance ice-hockey, cross-country skiing and track and field. But Lauri is up there with the brightest of Finnish stars.
 
Mr. T said:
There is a difference between knowing the game rules and knowing Lauri and rooting for him. Lauri is big news and random Finns are extremely proud of him without even knowing what team and in some cases what league Lauri plays in. Basketball has gathered a huge following during the past 10 or so years but it still remains a minor sport when compared to for instance ice-hockey, cross-country skiing and track and field. But Lauri is up there with the brightest of Finnish stars.
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I think it is a generational thing. People the age of my kids (ie in their twenties or early thirties) probably know who Lauri Markkanen is ("a finnish basketplayer"), while many people my age probably don't; I'd be mighty surprised if even a third of my customers (who are aged 50+ mostly) would know who Lauri Markkanen is or what sport he is participiating in.
 
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