On timelines, talent bets and Utah’s last vet standing
The Jazz helped Markkanen unleash his All-Star potential, but what does Utah’s competitive outlook mean for the Finn? (Trent Nelson, The Salt Lake Tribune)
The Utah Jazz are clearly entering a next phase of their rebuild process. After three seasons of a blended approach with veteran wisdom sprinkled into the youth movement, their recent transactions to move on from Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson and now John Collins make it obvious that the focus will skew even harder toward figuring out what they have with their 10 recent draftees.
It makes sense. The whole point of their rebuilding trades has been to place multiple concurrent talent bets and hope some of them yield a star-level asset. One of those bets already paid off: Lauri Markkanen was acquired as a 25-year-old catch-and-shoot specialist with a career scoring average of 15. His transformation to a 23-and-8 All-Star is a exactly the type of development success Utah hoped would occur when the rebuild started three summers ago.
Now Markkanen is 28. He’ll be 29 on the night of the 2026 draft, when Utah hopes to use another high selection to add a prospect with star-level upside, and likely in his early 30s before the Jazz really know what they have in that player, top-5 draftee Ace Bailey, and other youngsters.
That’s why the word “timeline” comes up a lot when discussing Markkanen and the Jazz’s competitive outlook. He’s the last man standing among the starter-caliber vets from last year’s squad. And while connected people continue to insist that the Jazz see Markkanen as an important part of the next relevant Jazz version, he’s a decade or so older than the kiddos who will largely determine the club’s ceiling in the coming years.
So how important is it that competitive teams have age-aligned rosters? How close are the Jazz to leveraging Markkanen’s special skill set in the context of a deep playoff run? And is Markkanen himself comfortable hanging on while the Jazz identify their next competitive core?
Those are the questions that will ultimately determine how the Jazz approach Markkanen now and in the near future. So let’s talk timelines.
Finals-caliber cores
Oklahoma City was on the ropes in a must-win Game 4 of the NBA Finals. The never-say-die Pacers had homecourt advantage and a 7-point cushion going into the final quarter, and if the Thunder couldn’t orchestrate a comeback inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse, they’d be facing a 3-1 series deficit.
It was Thunder veteran Alex Caruso who started the quarter with a tough iso fader after a play dead-ended. On the other end, he stunted a drive and then got back to challenge an Aaron Nesmith miss, and then another on the next play. In the ensuing minutes, Caruso guarded just about every Pacer, executed a pick-and-roll attack to generate free throws for Chet Holmgren, grabbed a defensive board, crashed from the blindside for his fifth steal, and earned a free throw trip. At the end of this Caruso-heavy stretch, the game was tied 89-89, at which point Shai Gilgeous-Alexander could take over, scoring 15 of the Thunder’s final 16 points to secure the win.
SGA’s theatrics rightly became the headline that Friday night, but it was abundantly clear that the Thunder’s impressive 26-and-under core wouldn’t have won the game — or perhaps the series — without their 30-year-old glue guy.
Going by age alone, OKC’s trade to acquire Caruso for then 21-year-old Josh Giddey could have felt like an inconsistent move from a timeline perspective. Their other stars were at that point 25 (SGA), 22 (Jalen Williams) and 21 (Chet Holmgren). But there’s no parade in Bricktown without Bald Mamba, and recent playoff history actually shows that “timeline” might be an overrated concept for building a Finals-worthy core.
The last 10 Finals teams had an average age gap of almost seven years among their star trios, and an even wider range of ages if you look at their 8-man playoff rotations (11.6 years of separation, on average).
Looking at age distribution among teams to reach the Finals " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?fit=1024%2C575&ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?resize=1050%2C590&ssl=1" alt width="1050" height="590" class="size-full wp-image-31481" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?resize=1024%2C575&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?resize=768%2C431&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/saltcityhoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/starsync.png?resize=950%2C534&ssl=1 950w" sizes="(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px">
Age distribution among recent Finals teams (Based on B-Ref season ages, which are calculated as of February 1)
The 2024 champion Celtics are another good example. They got close in 2022 with Al Horford (at 35) complementing their other top minute-getters who were all between 23 and 27. But the 18th banner didn’t go up until Jrue Holiday arrived and contributed enough during his age-33 season to join Boston’s mid-20s stars in a new big three.
It was the second time Holiday helped younger stars reach the mountaintop, as he was also the oldest player in Milwaukee’s championship trio in 2021, on a team that also had PJ Tucker (35) and Brook Lopez (32) rounding out its top five for playoff minutes. The 2023 Nuggets had the most age-aligned core trio out of all of these teams, but even they needed rotation help from a 21-year-old and a 36-year-old to pop the champagne. Dallas made the Finals with a literal teenager playing big minutes, and their two superstars were hardly on the same proverbial timeline at 24 and 31.
If this chart tells Jazz fans anything, it’s that having all of your stars blowing out the same number of candles is at best overrated and maybe even counterproductive. If, by the grace of the basketball gods, Ace Bailey and Utah’s 2026 selection are ready in a couple of years to start making playoff noise, franchise brass will undoubtedly need to start asking: “OK, who’s our Jrue Holiday? Who’s the veteran complementary star whose savvy and skills will help all of this young talent congeal into a winner?”
So why trade that player away if they already have him?
The Jazz’s competitive horizon
The Markkanen question boils down to how quickly you think the Jazz can return to relevance. The best way to make that determination is to give the youth brigade ample runway. To that end, Utah has spent the summer offloading veterans, and the minutes are there now for one or more of Utah’s young guys to loudly proclaim: I’m ready.
As Utah’s highest draft pick in this team-building cycle, Bailey might have the best chance of reaching stardom but will need to develop several aspects of his game. He is clearly going to have the opportunity to play. Bailey may be joined next summer by one of a heralded group of prospects atop the 2026 draft. If one or both of those guys truly hit, then the Jazz have the beginnings of a real core, especially if Markkanen is still around and producing a star-level output.
Those aren’t the only young guys who could ensconce themselves as Jazz building blocks. Walker Kessler already looks solidly like a starter-level commodity. Keyonte George has obvious talent, but is not a vastly different player than he was when he entered the league two summers ago. Isaiah Collier credentialed himself as a creator and Brice Sensabaugh as a shooter, but both need to round out their games. Kyle Filipowski impressed as a second-round rookie, and Cody Williams has tools despite a rough rookie season. Walt Clayton Jr. and John Tonje were big-time college scorers and Taylor Hendricks was showing progress before his injury.
If a couple of those guys make solid progress toward their best-case versions, Utah’s trajectory could shift quickly.
The other thing that could accelerate the Jazz’s ascent is if an opportunity falls in their lap to acquire a difference-maker with their extra assets. It’s hard to forecast when an opportunity like that might present itself, so Utah will continue to keep the proverbial powder dry while simultaneously maximizing the potential already on the roster.
In the meantime, Markkanen’s experience stands out on this roster, and maybe that’s a good thing. It could present the Jazz with both the luxury and the necessity of using Markkanen in a more heliocentric way now that there are fewer ball-dominant vets. While Markkanen was especially aggressive at hunting threes last season, we’ve still never really seen him operate with a steady diet of elbow isos, inverted pick-and-rolls and the like. (Last year, he finished just 22 plays as the ball handler in pick-and-roll situations, 39 in isolation. He took 93 total shots as a driver, about a third of Clarkson’s total and a quarter of Sexton’s.)
Whether or not the new environment begets a more aggressive Markkanen, his primary skill is something that should endure as he ages. He has special athleticism at 7’0″, but his truly elite NBA attribute is the movement shooting that makes him a constant threat with and (especially) without the ball. That type of skill doesn’t fade like sheer athleticism does past 30-ish.
Take Dirk Nowitzki, also a sweet-shooting 7-footer. Nowitzki averaged 24.6 points on .586 true shooting from his first All-Star season through his age-28 campaign. But the next five seasons were just as good: 24.0 on .580, five straight All-NBA selections, and a championship.
Nowitzki’s peak was obviously higher (a literal MVP), but the encouraging part here is seeing a player with some stylistic similarity to Markkanen who didn’t really see a marked decline between 28 and 33. Markkanen has averaged 23.0 on .620 since coming to Utah; if he merely holds at that level through age 33 the way Nowitzki did, that’s a player who will be extremely valuable when the young core is ready to start winning.
So if the Jazz plan to compete any time in the next half decade, there’s a really solid chance Markkanen can contribute to that.
Of course, another team could offer something in the meantime that the Jazz decide gives them more bites at the apple. The whispers persist that it would take a package with multiple premium assets to pry Markkanen lose from Utah. There’s really no reason to settle for less, especially if you think Markkanen can sustain his current level for the next several years. The Jazz don’t just need more raw assets; they already own 11 firsts in the next seven drafts, so even if a Lauri trade netted the Jazz three to four more, what does that really do to change their position? The Jazz are closer to contention with Markkanen and 11 firsts than they would be with 14 firsts and no Markkanen.
That’s from the Jazz’s angle. Then there’s Markkanen’s side of things…
Kärsivällisyyttä: Finnish for patience
The other thing that could change the calculus on the Markkanen front is if he starts getting antsy about the process.
By all accounts, Markkanen likes being in Utah and values his partnership with Jazz coach Will Hardy, who helped him unleash his All-Star potential. In fact, he intentionally engineered his extension signing in a way that would make him ineligible for an in-season trade.
“I feel like what I did last summer with (extension timing), that kind of tells you the confidence I have in the organization and the guys we have,” he told reporters after the 2024-25 season. “I love being in Utah.”
At the same time, Markkanen is the active player with the most games played (450) and no playoff appearances. Among current players with All-Star on their résumés, only LaMelo Ball has even half of Lauri’s games played. He has to be itching to experience the postseason — something Utah almost certainly won’t provide him next season.
It would be understandable if Markkanen ran out of patience at some point and told team brass he wants to be put in a more competitive situation. But for now, he doesn’t sound that way at all, at least publicly.
“We’ll see what happens in summer,” he said in April. “There’s things that you can’t control, but I love being here and working out with the guys that we have and building this thing.”
That positioning should be music to the ears of any fans who prefer to imagine a more timely ascent to relevance. The Jazz are closer to contention with Markkanen than they would be without him.
The flow chart for deciding whether to move on from the 28-year-old All-Star should look like this:
Is his competitive impatience starting to outweigh his comfort level in Utah? Are the Jazz getting ridiculous offers they would be silly to ignore? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then it’s understandable to consider the options.
If the answer to both is no, it’s fine to keep him! History tells us that contending teams’ stars can be spread out across the age curve, and that players like Markkanen often age gracefully. That’s why, at least for the time being, he’s still a fundamental part of the project.
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