Salt City Seven: Markkanen Keeps Improving, Competition Watch, Dunn Deal & More

Lauri Markkanen just keeps getting better. (Rick Bowmer via sltrib.com)

Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.

A quick dissection of a big-picture topic or burning question relevant to the week in Jazzland.

About the time Lauri Markkanen was elevating over three defenders during an 18-point fourth quarter on Thursday, it became pretty obvious: this dude is even better than he was half a season ago.

Markkanen’s All-Star leap has been well-documented, and has landed him as essentially a co-favorite for the Most Improved Player award (+115), along with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (+125). Both guys are studs, and the transformations we’ve seen from both have been remarkable. But what might be lost on some folks is the fact that, beyond Markkanen’s impressive year-over-year improvement, he’s also continued to get better within the 2022-23 season.

Let’s start with the easy part. Overnight leaps like the one Markkanen has taken as just a raw scorer almost never happen in the NBA. Most guys who climb to 25+ scoring averages get there on a slow boil. Markkanen went from 14.8 last season to 25.2 as a first-year Jazzman. If his season average holds, it will be just the third time in 30 years that a first-time 25-ppg scorer got there by making a single-season leap of 10 points or more.

Double-digit jumps of 10+ points by first-time 25 ppg scorers, 3pt era:

(If you want, go ahead and throw Dale Ellis in there: he remarkably went from 7.1 to 24.9 on his way to claiming the 1986-87 MIP award. Other guys who almost met the criteria above: Ja Morant jumped 7.7 points in his MIP season, and James Harden jumped 9.1 when he left OKC for Houston. Michael Jordan, Steph Curry and Kawhi Leonard had double-digit jumps to over 25ppg, but all three had been 25-ppg scorers previously and were coming off of years where they had missed 60 or more games.)

Gilgeous-Alexander, whose Thunder the Jazz will see twice more this week after vanquishing them on Thursday, has made a similarly impressive leap from 24.5 last year to 31.0, a top-5 figure for the dynamic on-ball threat. The case for him as MIP will be constructed a little differently than Markkanen’s; while the perception of Markkanen is that he vaulted from role player status to a top 20ish performer, SGA was already a borderline All-Star last season and his leap has been about reaching pretty hallowed territory. He’s a legit candidate for an All-NBA spot.

But here’s where that narrative sells the Finnish forward short: he also made a similar “great to elite” leap, he has just done it in the course of the current season.

The version of Markkanen that the Jazz got through mid December was a wildly better player than last year’s Lauri — and also not close to the guy who’s been trotting out since and dropping nearly 29 and 9 on opponents since before Christmas, with unreal efficiency for someone who has that kind of usage.

Markkanen didn’t stop with an All-Star leap, he just keeps getting better.

Raw number increases speak more loudly. But the usage jump — from 19.5% last year, to 23.6% over the first part of this season, to now 28.1% over his last 26 games — is significant. The Jazz are adjusting to life without Mike Conley’s pick-and-roll wizardry, and Jordan Clarkson has entered his annual winter shooting funk, so Markkanen has existed more as a pure #1 option in recent weeks. Usage in the 28-plus realm is superstar territory, and Markkanen has managed to climb his way into that stratosphere without sacrificing per-shot efficiency at all.

In fact, only three players match Markkanen’s season long figures of usage and true shooting: Steph Curry, Nikola Jokic and Kevin Durant. That’s rarified air. Those three men own a total of five MVP trophies.

In moments of honesty, Jazz folks will tell you that they’ve adjusted and readjusted their projection of Markkanen’s ceiling. Not that long ago, it felt sacrilegious to muse about a Dirk Nowitzki-like trajectory for the 25-year-old forward. Now, emboldened by what they’re seeing, people with a pulse on the Jazz’s thinking will point out that even Dirk wasn’t this automatic at that point in his career.

Nobody foresaw this sharp a turn in the Finn’s career trendline, but they clearly believed he was capable of more than he was tasked with in Chicago and Cleveland. In fact, at least part of the logic behind last fall’s Bojan Bogdanovic-for-Kelly Olynyk trade was that it would create opportunities for Markkanen to push the envelope on his personal development. However you feel about that trade in a vacuum, it’s hard to deny that it also gave Markkanen some head room he might not have had with Bogey still on the roster.

Now, the Jazz’s ecosystem is fully his sandbox. Markkanen is not someone the Jazz acquired to play the arbitrage game — they hope he’ll be calling Salt Lake City home for a long time. It’s helps that the NBA and its players are focused on fixing veteran extension rules that have made it almost impossible to keep veterans who pop into stardom during their second contract away from free agency. Markkanen could sign a 3-year extension coming off of his All-Star performance, if a new set of rules make it advantageous for him to do so. He could also wait and negotiate a new 4-year pact the following summer, or become a free agent in 2025.

Jazz coach Will Hardy has been fond of saying that the Jazz still don’t fully know just how good Markkanen can be. The way he has continued to advance his outputs even during the season is a good indication that Hardy is not lying. Whether it’s him or SGA that ultimately captures the MIP hardware, the Jazz clearly have a player who is still pushing on the boundaries of what he can be as an NBA star.

94 + 170

Speaking of Markkanen, this stat is too good not to share, even though SLC Dunk’s Tavan Paker beat me to it during the week… Markkanen currently has 170 made threes this season and 94 dunks. Since 1996-97 (as far back as dunks are a searchable shot type on Sports Reference), only one other human has had at least that many of both in a season: Durant, three separate times. If he makes 23 more threes over the final 20 games, he’ll be the only person on record with 94+ dunks and 193+ threes.

44%

The Jazz’s two games this week were both among their best defensive performances of the year. They held the Thunder to 43.8% eFG and the Spurs to 44.3%, outside of garbage time and heaves. Those are two of their best five eFG defensive performances of the season.

29.7%

Reference was made above to Clarkson’s usual winder doldrums, so let’s put some dimension around it: he’s shooting 29.7% from deep over his last 17 games. He’s still, however, averaging career highs in points (20.9), assists (4.3) and rebounds (4.0, tied with his second season).

+13.5

I’ll admit it: Talen Horton-Tucker is kind of a perplexing player. His flaws are obvious, but the team is doing pretty well with him as the offense-runner. His net rating this year in all lineups that don’t include any of the four traded Jazzmen or the injured Sexton is +13.5. A lot of those are with weird hodgepodge lineups, but something there is clearly working.

9.1

Now that Walker Kessler has played 25 games as a starter, I was interested to see how some of his metrics are holding up against top-flight opposition. His defensive rating went from 107.0 as a reserve to 116.1 in the starting five — 9.1 points worse per 100 possessions. On the bright side, his DRtg since All-Star is a stingy 94.9, but he can’t play all his games against the Spurs and the Thunder.

In the words of Jazz players/people

“I played football, I was a free safety high school. My instincts come from that. I like to play physical. Understanding the game, understanding the personnel, and you got to have a good defense around you that allows you to be able to kind of choose your points of when to be aggressive and try to go for steals.”

-The surprising Kris Dunn, after sparking the Jazz in Saturday’s win

How delightfully on-brand for the defensive specialist that even after his highest scoring game in over three calendar years, his best quote came while describing his chops on the other end.

Dunn has been an absolute surprise, with 26 points, eight rebounds and nine assists in his first 40 minutes as a Jazzman. Quite unexpectedly, he is the third leading scorer for Utah since the All-Star break (small sample alert, of course). The former top-five pick had been in and out of the league, appearing in just 18 NBA games since early 2020. But the energy he has brought the Jazz while playing on a 10-day contract makes it likely he’ll get invited to continue his NBA career somewhere — including possibly with the Jazz when his short-term deal is up later this week.

On the other hand, Frank Jackson has yet to log a Jazz minute, and Utah still does have one other roster spot it can fill if it chooses to. In the short term they have chosen to prioritize some ball handling, with Sexton ailing, but I still wouldn’t be surprised to see them take a longer-term shot, using their remaining MLE to sign a prospect to a longer deal with some team options and guarantee triggers. Several overseas leagues are still ongoing, so it’s possible that they’re stalling to see if someone they like wants to jump on a plane before the NBA season is done.

Projecting the Jazz’s place in the bigger picture

Whether you’re focused on the playoff/play-in race or the race to the bottom, here’s a look at the teams within reach of the Jazz.

Utah is also within 3 games of current EC play-in squads Miami and Atlanta.

• NOP’s freefall, LeBron James’ late-breaking injury news, and Minnesota’s consistent inconsistency mean the play-in is still very much in reach.
• OKC is starting to rest SGA, which could be their way of ceding the play-in race.
• Utah doesn’t have a lot of “gimme” games left — just four left at home against non-elite teams. That said, it will probably be their performance on the road against bad teams that will drive a lot of their close — like this week’s two in Oklahoma, or a game later in Los Angeles.
• Will the Lakers’ easy schedule, Anthony Davis’ stardom, and a remade supporting cast be enough to life the Lakers back into the play-in?

Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each Jazz outing

It’s always when we can keep the Game Ball department busy. Two wins, two fake Wilsons:

Jazz 120, Thunder 119: Lauri Markkanen. The All-Star’s 18-point fourth quarter was just silly. The Thunder went up nine, and from that point forward in regulation, the Finnisher went 7-for-9 for 16 points. Then his OT performance included a tying three and the eventual game-winning free throws. In all, 43 and 10 along with a game-best +14, not to mention some ridiculous highlight plays. This was an easy call, but Walker Kessler deserves mention: his night started with a set play for his first career three, and regulation ended with his tying putback and game-saving block. Seven blocks and 18 boards for Kessler, to go with his seven points. Clarkson scored 24, and Kris Dunn surprised in his Jazz debut with 11.

Jazz 120, Thunder 119: Kris Dunn. With apologies to Mark, it just felt like Dunn was the story of this game. Markkanen was clearly the best player (again), powering his way to 27 despite a shaky start. It was another 14-point fourth for the All-Star, and many of those came before the outcome was really settled. But it feels like the guys who really turned the game before it got to that point were Dunn (15-7-8), Ochai Agbaji (14, +20) and THT (12-6-4 with 3 blocks).   

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action

This week, the Jazz complete their 5-game series against the Sankahomatonio ThunSpurs.

Tuesday 2/28, Jazz vs. Spurs: San Antonio is now 2-24 since New Year’s Eve… just an astounding level of commitment to the lottery gods. They looked hungry from the jump on Saturday, but eventually the sheer talent deficit caught up to them and Utah outscored them by 26 after halftime to send them to a 16th straight loss. They own the worst defense in the league and the third worst offense, and somehow they get even worse away from the Alamo: -13.2 net rating on the road.  

Friday 3/3, Jazz @ Thunder: The Spurs let Gilgeous-Alexander rest for the last two, so keep an eye on Tuesday’s game against the Kings, as it might be an indication of whether the Jazz will have to deal with the All-Star guard. The Thunder are +3.6 per 100 with him on the court, and exactly -3.6 without him, so that’s the big question. If he doesn’t play, then it will be up to secondary scorers Josh Giddey (16.2) and Lu Dort (14.1) to keep the Thunder afloat. 

Sunday 3/5, Jazz @ Thunder: The Jazz get to spend a whole weekend in the wild town of OKC, where the Thunder are actually quite competent at 17-13. Also, watch out for Isaiah Joe, a sharpshooting guard (45% from deep) who’s been playing more consistently since the start of the year.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

This remains cool and great:

On Saturday, we hosted the second cohort of #UtahJazzScholarship recipients at the game. Students had to chance to meet players, shoot around on the court, and watch the Jazz take on the Spurs 🖤#TakeNote pic.twitter.com/hJNjDMcK3X

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) February 27, 2023

Another week in the books. Just 20 games left!