Have you ever taken a bite out of a nothing burger? It’s a horribly underwhelming experience, and a stark reminder that the power of imagination alone can only take you so far. There is no juicy patty of beef. No melted slice of cheese cascading off the crest like molten lava. No satisfying crunch of lettuce. No tangy zip of dill pickle. No, not even one sesame seed from the pillowy bun can be felt upon your tongue. That sandwich is built on fairy dust and broken dreams. It’s fiction, it’s empty, it’s simply not real.
Lauri Markkanen trade rumors are a nothing burger. No matter how hard you believed, staring at your news feed, cycling the refresh button until your eyeballs swirl, every single piece of breaking news stating “this time, the Jazz are really going to do it!” has been paid off with, well, a massive chomp met with the succulent taste of absolutely nothing.
So, when the Jazz were rumored to be active on the trade routes once again, your local mountain men were truly a more reliable source on the trail than NBA Central, eh?
When it comes to the Utah Jazz roster, Lauri Markkanen may hold the greatest trade value (except for maybe Ace Bailey? To be determined). In the eyes of the NBA as a whole, the Jazz are perceived as a thrift store for the “real” basketball teams to dig through and pick up whomever they deem valuable. So every time the NBA media gets bored, out comes some new intel on how the Jazz are just aching to get rid of their former All-Star forward.
And yet, year after year, rumor mill after rumor mill, Markkanen remains a Jazzman. If you ask me, I truly don’t expect the Jazz to deal Lauri anytime soon.
My reasoning is two-fold. First: if the Jazz planned to deal Lauri, they’ve certainly passed his peak value as an asset. Years removed from his lone All-Star appearance, he’s seen his stats decline across the board. Whether by design or by chance, Markkanen is less valuable today than he was two seasons ago. Yet his asking price remains, well, Danny Ainge-level by all accounts.
Second: the Great Offseason Purge of 2025 saw the Jazz dish out their unwanted assets for pennies on the dollar. John Collins, Collin Sexton, and Jordan Clarkson were all handed out for next to nothing (or literally nothing in Clarkson’s case). If Lauri wasn’t seen as a part of the Jazz’s long-term plans, they wouldn’t be hoarding him like I hoard every last slice of apple pie. DON’T EVEN REACH FOR IT, GRANDMA. IT’S MINE.
Unless some team comes around with the deal of a lifetime — something truly unmissable — Lauri will stay in Utah.