Lauri “Valkoinen Mammi” Markkanen hasn’t been doing as great lately. Someone once told me that’s what NBA rookies do, get in slumps, but I didn’t believe them then and I don’t believe them now. Slumps are a concept created by the powers that be to make player’s ridiculous contracts justifiable. If Markkanen’s stats are worse, it’s because he’s actually regressing as a basketball player, defying normal development trajectories. Sorry to say it, but he’s probably only a few weeks away from being a D-Leaguer, and then only a few more until he’s out of pro ball for good.
These 24 points are but a last, dying gasp of a player who knows his time is up. It was fun while it lasted, all the three-pointers he was hitting and the Porzingis comparisons he was garnering and the peace between teammates who wanted nothing more than to punch each other repeatedly in the face he was mediating, but it’s all coming to an end.