Lauri Markkanen agrees with Luka Doncic that NBA scoring is easier than Europe, citing fewer fouls, no defensive three-second rule, and shorter games. He still scored more at EuroBasket despite the differences, and pitched the Utah Jazz as a destination for free agents.
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Luka made a comment some years ago, maybe his first or second year in the NBA, where he said scoring in the NBA is way easier than scoring in Europe. Do you carry that same sentiment?
Partially, yeah. I think just what I noticed this summer, for example, in EuroBasket, obviously I didn't play EuroLeague, like Luka did. But so my experience is coming from EuroBasket, but just definitely not getting the same foul calls that I am in the NBA.
Mm-hmm.
No defensive 3 seconds, obviously shorter game clock, only 40-minute games. So I think that affects on like points per game averages already. Just, and so yeah, I would probably agree. Just, it's a different game. Like, you have one superstar on a European team and like, I was watching what— obviously Jan is a great player, superstar, and I was watching what Czech Republic was doing to Greece this summer and they were literally 5 guys in the paint because there was no 3-second rule. So that definitely affects that. And I don't know if it's— I still scored more in EuroBasket than I scored in the NBA. So I don't know if it's completely true, but yeah, definitely he's on something.
No, I definitely can agree with the defensive 3 seconds. You like, when we went last year, we were playing against France and they were still playing like 2 legit centers, Rudy Gobert, Mustapha Fall. Dustin Porte, they're playing like legit two centers. We out there like, yo, what is this? Like, this is crazy.
Yeah.
So it's definitely a different game. I'm a free agent, sell to me the Utah Jazz on, you know, you'll be in Utah for a long time now, brother. Sell to me, a free agent, not literally me, but just you're selling someone to come to Utah Jazz, join you as a free agent. Continue to help boost this team. You're talking about making the playoffs and obviously then you sniff that, you start wanting to make runs. So sell to me the Utah Jazz as a free agent. What would Lauri Markkanen say to free agents coming up? Because it's gonna be on you to start recruiting, my brother.
Yeah, I mean, I'm really enjoying staying there. Obviously just the, I'm more of a low-key guy, so it's been a great city for me and my family to be and my kids to grow. So off the court, everything's great. Just great organization taking care of us. And game-wise, I always felt like Utah was one of the toughest places to play.
That is a fact.
That's because of fan base and they always have our back. So it's really fun to go play every night and It's just we compete. We're trying to win that, get that winning culture. And obviously we have a great coach now. And so I've been really enjoying this year and we play hard and just having the fan base and people in Utah really love basketball. So you can see it all around. So I'm really happy to be a part of it. And hopefully we get some guys coming over too.
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