Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen has been diagnosed with a right hip impingement following an MRI and will be reevaluated in two weeks, sources tell Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link). Markkanen suffered the injury in Wednesday’s practice.
Markkanen also underwent imaging on his right ankle, which he tweaked in Wednesday’s practice, but those scans came back clean, Charania reports.
The Finnish star has performed at a high level this season when healthy, averaging 26.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in 34.4 minutes per game across 42 outings (all starts). However, after appearing in Utah’s first 22 games, he has played in just 20 of the past 36 contests, missing time here and there due to minor ailments, including a seven-game absence in January as a result of an illness.
The Jazz, who have already ruled out both Jaren Jackson Jr. and Jusuf Nurkic for the season for health reasons, have little incentive to win down the stretch, since they want to make sure they retain their top-eight protected 2026 first-round pick. They were fined $500K by the NBA a couple weeks ago for how they managed Markkanen and Jackson in a pair of games.
Tony Jones of The Athletic reported on Wednesday evening that the NBA was sending an independent doctor to Utah to confirm the results of Markkanen’s MRI, but he deleted that tweet by Thursday morning without providing clarification.
Multiple reporters, including Marc Stein of The Stein Line and Jones himself (Twitter links), later confirmed that initial report wasn’t accurate and that the league would simply have access to the MRI results, which is always the case based on the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Utah is currently 18-40, which is the sixth-worst record in the NBA.
Adam Silver can’t be mad lol
The tank is deep with this team
Tank Tank Tank