New Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen doesn’t yet have a Utah residence, but he may have already adopted the Grizzlies hockey team. “I’ve got to look it up and go to a game or two,” Markkanen said. “I need to check that out.”
“Do you have any favorite neighborhoods?” Aho inquired, friendly but earnest.
Like Möttölä, Markkanen had resolved to play college ball in the United States in order to grow his game. As a big wolf in a small forest, he had no real sense yet of how good he was , and figured he’d be spending four years in college. So he wanted to find a place he could be as settled as is possible when you’re leaving behind almost everything and everyone you know.Markkanen had three official visits scheduled — to Utah, North Carolina, and Arizona.
“This was the first time that it happened that I wasn’t expecting anything. It was kind of a shock. I didn’t hear anything before, I didn’t see my name in any rumors,” Markkanen said. “… It was emotional. I understand the business side of it, so I’ve got no hard feelings. I thanked them for the opportunity that I had. But the first moments were really emotional for me, because we really liked Cleveland, and thought we’d found a home there.
Neither he nor Aho saw this trade to the Jazz coming, though. Not that they can blame the Cavaliers for taking a swing on an All-Star such as Donovan Mitchell. “We’ve seen some apartments, and even in the pictures of the apartments you can see the mountains! I’m very excited. We love nature,” Aho said. “Chicago, you know — it’s a. There’s not much nature in the city. And then you see here [in Helsinki] — we live 2 minutes away from a beautiful, big park, and that really means a lot to me.
It’s an unusual position for a Finnish basketball player to be in: “Obviously, there haven’t been too many NBA guys from Finland,” he notes, and he’s quite correct. He’s just the seventh-ever Finn to be drafted by an NBA team, and only the third to score points in a regular-season game. “I’ve been able to postpone it because of the work I’ve had over in the States. The timing hasn’t worked out,” Markkanen said. “We postponed it [again this year] because the date that it was supposed to start, it was our second-to-last regular-season game. Our season was still on, but they require you to be there in person from the first day. So it didn’t work out.”
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