On Thursday morning the NBA launched the standing of All-Star voting up to now, which confirmed that Lauri Markkanen had the seventh most votes of any Western Convention frontcourt participant.
Later within the day, the Utah Jazz posted a video on their social media pages of Walker Kessler stepping in as Markkanen’s marketing campaign supervisor and handing out Markkanen All-Star gear to his teammates and coaches.
All the Jazz teaching workers confirmed as much as the world in Houston on Thursday night time sporting their matching Markkanen hoodies, after which Markkanen went off for a career-best 49 factors towards the Houston Rockets within the Jazz’s 131-114 win.
The Finnisher’s case to make an All-Star workforce continues to develop with each efficiency, and Thursday’s recreation was the cherry on prime.
Markkanen will not take nearly all of the credit score for his success and thanked his teammates after his 49-point efficiency.
“My teammates, that is all it’s,” he mentioned in his walk-off interview after the sport. “The teaching workers are placing me in nice conditions to succeed, and my missiles are delivering me the ball and have the belief in me.”
This time, he is not completely improper in ensuring to offer credit score to his teammates. Of Markkanen’s 15 made discipline targets towards the Rockets, just one shot was unassisted. That mentioned, the shot was a putback, a fast tip-in off a miss that was assisted by Mike Conley.
Even with Markkanen benefitting from the playmaking and unselfishness of his teammates, that does not take away from how spectacular his general recreation is.
The 7-footer scores in such a wide range of methods and so dynamically that it is exhausting to not be impressed.
“All of us put on hoodies along with his face on it, so you know the way we really feel about him,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy mentioned after the sport. “Simply spectacular.”
Towards Houston, Markkanen hit catch-and-shoot 3s, dunked the ball, caught alley-oop lobs, scored on fadeaways within the midrange and ran the ground in transition.
He is deadly from the corners, from the highest of the arc, in pick-and-roll, as a lob menace and he is robust sufficient to battle and rating by way of contact.
However do not simply take my phrase for it. Here is each made basket from Markkanen towards the Rockets:
On the finish of the night time, Markkanen had 49 factors on 55.6% capturing general, 40% from 3 and 100% from the free throw line.
Although it is not the flashiest a part of the sport, Markkanen’s consistency of late from the free throw line has been simply as spectacular as among the different stuff he is performed.
Within the final eight video games, Markkanen was 67-of-69 from the free throw line and has made 43 consecutive free throws over the past 4 video games.
Markkanen notched his tenth recreation this season scoring 30 factors or extra after having simply 15 such video games in all of his profession earlier than placing on a Jazz uniform.
He is grow to be a nightmare matchup for opposing groups and he is turned out to be even higher than the Jazz might have hoped for when he was included within the commerce that despatched Donovan Mitchell to the Cleveland Cavaliers.