NEW YORK — After ice hockey and soccer, basketball sits among a group of other popular sports in Finland, along with volleyball, auto racing, skiing and harness racing.
That could change starting Thursday. Because Lauri Markkanen will walk across the Barclays Center stage and into the NBA.
The former Arizona Wildcats forward will become the third player with Finnish blood to have played in the NBA and the only current Finn. He’ll also likely become Finland’s first lottery pick.
“It’s a great feeling (being) the only player from Finland in the NBA,” Markkanen said Wednesday. “I take a lot of pride in that and hopefully I can make them proud.”
The two Finnish journalists on hand for NBA predraft interviews Wednesday at the Grand Hyatt were all but certain he will.
While YLE Finland’s Antti-Jussi Sipila says the NHL Draft typically attracts 30-40 journalists – reflecting locals’ much-higher passion for that cold-weather sport – Saska Saarikoski of the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat said Markkanen’s status as a probable lottery pick is beginning to hit home.
“We’ve had a couple of No. 2 picks in the NHL Draft, but if he’s No. 10 or whatever (in the NBA), it’s a much bigger deal,” Saarikoski said. “People are kind of slowly getting that in Finland. This will raise the interest in the NBA to another level, totally.”
Markkanen could go even higher than that. Oddsmakers have been setting Markkanen’s over/under draft spot at 7.5 while Draft Express and ESPN say he’ll go No. 7 to Minnesota.
Coincidentally, the Timberwolves are the same team that Markkanen grew up watching and rooting for. He even had the Timberwolves logo on his Twitter page as he entered his freshman season at Arizona.
“When I was growing up, I was watching their games but now wherever I go, that’s the spot,” Markkanen said.
Dressed in a conservative blue suit and answering questions in his typically understated fashion during predraft interviews Wednesday, Markkanen said it would be a “privilege” to play for any NBA team and spoke respectfully but generically regarding all teams he was asked about.
Markkanen also carefully used humor to answer questions about a dinner meeting with Knicks president Phil Jackson, saying the two mostly talked about off-court issues and, well, ate.
“Great dinner,” Markkanen said. “New York strip steak. Sixteen ounces.”
In addition to talking with the Knicks, after finishing up his spring semester classes early last April, Markkanen said he based himself in Washington, D.C., and worked out for four NBA teams: Dallas (which has pick No. 9), Orlando (6), Minnesota (7) and Boston (3).
Already known for a shooting touch that sank 50.5 percent of his 3-pointers through January – a late-season slump had him finish at 42.3 percent – Markkanen said teams tested him on how well he could defend and otherwise survive on the perimeter.
“I’m really versatile and can do a lot of different things,” Markkanen said. “I’ve been working on everything. Teams have been putting me out of position so I been doing a lot of guard stuff. I’ve had very successful preparation.”
Markkanen said it helped that the tests teams had for him are things he prepared for while working out in Washington, D.C. this spring. He also credited his year of experience at Arizona for helping round out his game.
“Just in general, being at Arizona helped me a lot,” Markkanen said. “Coming from Europe, it’s a different game there. Getting out of my comfort zone and doing things (differently) definitely helped me. … I got a lot better defensively. I think I got smarter, too, playing under coach (Sean) Miller.”
At the same time, Markkanen’s season at Arizona also helped trigger additional interest in basketball back home in Finland.
Sipila, of the Finnish broadcast network, said his network obtained the rights to show UA games starting in January and carried them until the Wildcats lost to Xavier in the NCAA Tournament.
“It was amazing on every level,” Sipila said of Markkanen’s freshman season. “Being a freshman, third team All-American and all that – that’s one of the things that people don’t understand how big of a deal that really is.”
Maybe they will be starting Thursday, when their 7-foot native makes a high-profile jump into one of the world’s most popular sports.
Maybe he’ll even wear some Finnish colors or rep his country in another way, though of course Markkanen wasn’t detailing that, either.
“Stay tuned, that’s what I can tell you,” Markkanen said of his draft-night outfit. “Tune in on Thursday night.”
