Diop wrote:JMAC3 wrote:Is Markannen even all that positive in trade value at this point? Back to back years of his production and efficiency going down.... all while his salary has gone up. He is 20th highest paid player in the league at 46 million and might not even be a top 40 player.
19 ppg, 6 rpg, 1.5 apg as the #1 option on 52% efg%.
85th best player in the league this year in EPM.
I wouldn't move the 4th pick for him, he is a third option that is paid as a first option now.
I realize the deal is sending Charlotte more picks, but they already have a bunch of firsts.
also rarely manages 60 games a year.
#4 for Markkanen is an easy no for Charlotte
I think declining the deal is pretty reasonable (as I said, wasn't sure if Charlotte should consider), but I do think some context is important in evaluating Lauri (none of which is me saying Charlotte should do this).
1. Utah has shut him down while able to play three seasons in a row, it seems likely he would have exceeded 60 games, otherwise, in all three years.
2. I don't think there has been a more dysfunctional environment in which to play than Utah this past season. I've talked extensively about why I think people should give Lauri a bit of the benefit of the doubt (while also recognizing that some skepticism is both rational and justified).
3. I don't have Lauri's historical EPM, but for LEBRON his percentiles looked like this (BPM rank, not percentile, also listed):
21-22 (CLE)
O: 84
D: 60
Total: 81
BPM: 89th
22-23
O: 97
D: 23
Total: 94
BPM - 23rd
23-24
O: 97
D: 47
Total: 96
BPM - 26th
24-25
O: 89
D: 5
Total: 56
BPM - did not qualify, but would have been 103rd based on when he played
This means in 22-23 and 23-24 he was roughly a top-30 player by LEBRON. I still think he is that player and this two season run is why I think comments about him not being a top-50 player or not being an adequate second option for a contender are really far off. He is an incredible player.
Beyond trading our best playmakers (Conley and Olynyk) who really created the ball movement Lauri thrives off of, this year was awful for other reasons. In 2022-23 we were 10th in assists per game and 23rd in passes. In 23-24 we were 10th in assists per game and 16th in passes. In 24-25 we were 20th in assists per game and 20th in passes. The loss of Conley and Olynyk deeply impacted our ball movement. But this year was a horrible context for other reasons, too.
1. Per David Locke (our radio play-by-play announcer) at the start of the Jazz decided they would be running the offense differently with Lauri becoming a primary initiator to develop more isolation scoring. This is stupid, this isn't his game. It was also reported that we would ask him to scale down his volume to allow younger players to have more on-ball reps. Again, stupid. You've told your best player not to play the way he did during two seasons where he was *arguably* a top 25-30 player, AND you've told him to do less because you want to see gleague level talent shoot more.
2. We traded almost every playmaker on our team. We ran with George/Sexton/Clarkson as our primary initiators - and Lauri played well when starting during November-December (20/6/2 on ~60%TS across those two months) but his volume was lower than prior years (see 1). He had a lower back strain (he also had spasms) in January and his efficiency dropped (also coinciding with starting a rookie Isaiah Collier), once he had time to recover (February) he was starting with a rookie point guard and Sexton (our best playmaker) was out, then we basically sat him the majority of games for the rest of the season. We were fined for resting him intentionally and when he did play (from January onward), it was in lineups that had no stability because of our rotating resting schedule. It was awful basketball.
Something kind of interesting is to look at the TS% of our players by month (looking at full months, i.e., no October, no April) which illustrates some of this. Any months with 5 or less games played I've listed as 'out', but note that starting in January players were rested pretty regularly. We also began to start Collier over George in January and Collier was GOD AWFUL in January and it really hurt the on-court product (he did improve, but offered no spacing).
player: George | Sexton | Lauri | Collins | Kessler
Nov. 56% | 62% | 64% | 67% | 76%
Dec. 59% | 62% | 60% | 64% | 70%
Jan. 54% | 60% | 51% | out | 73%
Feb. 56% | out | 55% | 64% | 73%
Mar. 54% | 55% | out | out | 49%
