Just about every Utah Jazz fan should know by now that Lauri Markkanen is currently in the middle of a renaissance during the 2025 EuroBasket tournament. Among those who is paying attention is Jazz coach Will Hardy, and not just because he’s the Jazz’s head coach, but also because doing so was what helped elevate Markkanen when the Jazz first got him.
ESPN’s Tim Bontemps explained this during the most recent episode of “The Hoop Collective” that Hardy watched Markkanen’s EuroBasket performance from 2022, which turned the Jazz star into… well a star!
“If you go back a couple years ago, when Will Hardy got the Jazz job, he went over and watched Markkanen play with Finland in this tournament and came back and set up a lot of stuff for the Jazz to run through Markkanen in the same way he did with the Finnish National team.
“(Markkanen) had by far the best year of his career, made an All-Star team… and launched himself into a new stratosphere, including getting himself a very large contract extension.”
While it may be a standard thing for coaches to do what Hardy did back then, his paying special attention to Markkanen more or less got him to explode. While it was surprising to see Markkanen play at the level he did in Year 6, everyone knew from his early days the kind of potential he had, but he never quite met with the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Hardy doing it again could very well lead to Markkanen’s EuroBasket performance translating into NBA stardom again. Utah might be tanking again, but they are expected to fight even if they expect to lose many games in the process. That will hopefully mean Markkanen will get to look more like his old self again.
Will Will Hardy unlock more Jazz players?
Markkanen is very easily Hardy’s best success story as a coach. He came to Utah as a former lottery pick with unmet expectations until, under Hardy’s guidance and with enough touches, he then met them.
Markkanen became unleashed in Utah, which should make many wonder about what that could mean for some of the Jazz’s other young talent. There hasn’t quite been a standout over the last three years like Markkanen, but that can certainly change, especially now that the Jazz have some intrguing young talent added to the team.
Sadly, Utah just went through a season where the biggest standouts among their young players were Brice Sensabaigh and Kyle Filipowski, which wasn’t honestly a bad thing. However, everyone’s eyes were on Keyonte George and Cody Williams, neither of whom came close to meeting the bar that had been set for them.
This season will be a good way to test to see if Hardy can help bring the best out of the young talent he has like he did with Markkanen. Hardy has proven that he’s a good coach, but no one should expect him to be a miracle worker. However, his success with Markkanen should make everyone optimistic for what he can do with their other youngsters.
Source link
#Hardy #watching #Lauri #Markkanen #closely #EuroBasket #surprise #reason