Data analysis: How strong is the lone hero Markkanen, the Finnish men s basketball team "Yao Ming-style"?

The 2025 European Basketball Championship officially started, and all European basketball teams sent their main players to participate. Among the top ten European Championships selected by European media before the game, Jokic first, Antetokounmpo second, Doncic third, Markanen fourth, and Wagner fifth. In the US ESPN selection strength list, Wagner Jr. rose to fourth, Shen Jing fifth, and Markanen fell to seventh. The two sides may have different selection angles. Europe focuses more on FIBA ​​arena, while ESPN focuses more on NBA performance.

In the opening match between Finland and Sweden on the first day, Markanin scored 28 points in full firepower to help the team win. He also became the most eye-catching star on the first day of the European Championship. In order to let everyone understand his abilities more intuitively, today's Star Test will bring you Markanin's data analysis. Compared with other European Championships stars, Markanen's biggest characteristic is a lone hero. His national team status is very similar to Yao Ming in our country. A top NBA star led a group of CBA teammates to raise the team's upper limit. Finnish basketball's overall strength is average. The best result in the European Championship was the 6th place in 1967, but then it began to decline. It failed in the qualifiers, and participating in the main competition became a luxury. It was not until Markanen's emergence that Finnish basketball returned to the first-tier European arena. In the 2022 European Championship, Markanen led the team to the 7th place in Europe, almost tying the best record in the national team history.

In addition, Markanin is the second Finnish player to be selected for the NBA (currently only two). The first Finnish star to be selected for the NBA is power forward Hanno Motola. He played in the 40th pick in 2000. He played for two seasons in the Atlanta Hawks and was a water dispenser administrator. Later, he returned to the European arena and is still working in the international basketball world. Recently, he served as an assistant coach in the Canadian national team. His basketball status in Finland is equivalent to that of Wang Zhizhi in our China. Although he did not have the NBA achievements, many Finnish children fell in love with basketball at that time, and Markanin also played basketball under his influence.

Compared to the national team, Markkanen is still slightly inferior in the NBA. He has only achieved the fastest-progress player honor once and once completed the All-Star honor. The most incredible thing is that he has never touched the playoff floor. For stars of this level, he can only sigh that the heroes are useless.

Among the top 100 NBA 2024-25 season final selected by the American theringer website, Markanin ranked 53rd, with 43 places at the beginning of the season down 10 places. The website comments are as follows:

This season, the Utah Jazz did not give Markanin too much playing time, but the 7-foot (about 2.13 meters) tall marksman is experiencing a rather abnormal season, which is inevitable, and partly because of intentional reasons: In the Jazz's continued to play badly, Markanin is using it to expand his new technical field - no longer limited to those who are already familiar with it. "Scoring the pace" mode instead attempts to take action in more difficult and more dense defense situations, which is an "investment". This is the strategy of Jazz head coach Will Hardy, who uses the youngest rotation in the league to run in. Although the teammates who can now use Markkanen to leverage him far less powerful than before, he still maintains the smooth offensive threat of the past few seasons.

If he has more powerful teammates support, his game efficiency should be back on track. Markkanen can partner with almost any type of player, adapt to any game style, and be competent in multiple positions. However, this compatibility may not always be translated into personal best performance, or even bring the team the best record. The Utah Jazz have longer-term plans, but it is still uncertain what role Markkanen plays in his future blueprint.

Markkanin will be more valuable to join a more competitive team, but the Jazz are not in a hurry to trade him. After all, he is a "low maintenance cost" star, because no matter what direction the Jazz chooses in the future, Markkanin's style of play is both adaptable and inclusive, and can perfectly integrate into the system, which can provide support for the team's adjustment. The biggest advantage of a star like him is that it can contribute great value to the team, and will not let the team fall into a passive situation of "he" in tactics or lineup construction.

A brief summary website evaluation is that last season, Markkanin continued to lie dormant and level up and improve his shortcomings. Although he is a dragon and snake in the Jazz team, he is definitely not within the team's future plans due to his age. Because of his all-round attributes, the team's management will never worry about his deal. He is like a woman who is outstanding in appearance and good in talent and learning. The old fox Anji will never give up until he sees the sky-high bride price.

Of course, the man who welcomed the bride was not a sucker, and he was also afraid of fraud. If he went out at a sky-high bride price, he could really get a good wife and mother. Next, let’s take a closer look at Markkanin’s skills and talents.

Last season, Markanin scored 22% of the scores within 10 feet of the basket, 3% of the mid-range scores, 18% of the free throw scores, and 57% of the three-point line scores. It can be clearly seen from the distribution of the scoring ratio that he is a tall turret-type inside line mainly based on outside shooting. In the craziest era of the three-point magic ball five years ago, he was definitely the most dream player of any running and bomb team. The Golden State Warriors are the most active in marrying Markanin in recent years.

Then let's first look at his projection quality. The SQ projection quality score of Markanen's data in the last two seasons is 78.2, surpassing 94% of the players in the league. It can be said that his shots are very good, and in terms of more detailed projection data..

, with 8.5 three-point shooting per game, ranked 15th in the league, but ranked second among all inside players, only lower than Wenban Yama's 8.8 times. His average shooting percentage of 2.9 goals per game is only a barely qualified level.

Among them, 366 three-pointers were hit by 128 and 35% of the shooting percentage was barely qualified. 31 three-pointers were hit by 9 goals and 29% of the shooting percentage. We will compare his data last season.

Last season, the shooting percentage of 168 was as high as 41.4%. The shooting percentage was as high as 41.4%. The shooting percentage of 7 goals was 21.2%. By comparison, you can see that as theringer website said, this season, because the Jazz team's lineup is younger, Markkanin's teammates have declined ability, and his phone will be of lower quality than in the past. In order to train himself, he also added strong shots facing stronger defensive interference, so the three-pointers dropped by 6.4 percentage points. The three-pointers with the ball have not been developed. It is also the key concern that many teams are hesitant when facing the sky-high bride price. After all, there are many shooters with the ball, and it is the most valuable thing to really hold the ball and solve the score. Although Markanen is a space-type insider, he inevitably has to work in the inside. Last season, he hit 139 goals in the frame with 10 feet of the basket with 243 hits in the basket with 10 feet in the basket, and 57.2% of the shooting percentage. He averaged 3.2 points in the small penalty area and ranked third among the main players in the Jazz. Kessler, the first in the team, averaged 9.5 points and Collins 5.5 points. It should be said that Markanen has a certain ability to finish inside, but his scoring poses greater threat to the outside.

As a 2.13-meter-long man, rebounding skills must also be an important indicator, but it is obvious that in the Jazz's tactics and lineup configuration, he did not serve as the main rebounder. Last season, he averaged 5.9 rebounds per game, ranking fourth among the main players in the Jazz, with 12.2 first in the team, 8.2 second in Collins, and 6.3 third in Filiposky.

He scored a total of 278 rebounds, of which 93 rebounds were fought for, and the rebound rate was only 33.5%. This also shows that he doesn't have to fight too much with the opponent's inside line to grab rebounds. There are other blue-collar workers in the team doing this job, but this actually makes him lose his value, because if he is asked to go to the small ball tactical team, rebounds are the fatal point of the small ball lineup, including during the Golden State Warriors' Universe Warriors, they crushed their opponents in all kinds of data, and only rebounds have always been behind their opponents. If the inside line of the small ball lineup has excellent rebounding ability, it will bring huge improvements to the team, but this Markanen is still almost the same.

Finally, it is the most critical task for inside players, the defensive frame, the same big shot type, Wenban Yama can become a peerless genius because he has the best defensive player-level defensive ability. So how effective is Markanen's defensive efficiency?

First of all, it must be emphasized that the Utah Jazz are a bad team. They don’t want to win. Last season, the team lost 120.4 points per 100 rounds and ranked last in the league, so Markanin’s defensive efficiency in such a team will inevitably be dragged down.

The opponent averaged 11.1 shots in front of him throughout the season, ranking fourth in the Jazz, with Kessler 19.7 times in the first place, Kiyant George 12.3 times in the second place, Collins 11.6 times in the third place, and Filiposky 11.1 times in the fourth place. The opponent hit 5.2 goals under his defense, limiting the opponent's shooting percentage to 47.1%, reducing the opponent's average by 0.3 percentage points. To be honest, he can still have positive efficiency in a bad team with such low defensive efficiency, which is very good in itself. Although he is not the defensive barrier like Wenban Yama, with his height and wingspan advantage, just one step to the basket and raise his hand is a huge interference.

Also put on the list of Markkanen's top 10 players against the defense last season to see the quality of his counterpart defensive players.

First James 18 minutes 27 seconds

Second Alexander 13 minutes 6 seconds

Third OG Anunobi 11 minutes 46 seconds

Fourth Keegan Murray 11 minutes 38 seconds

Fifth Wenban Yama 11 minutes 32 seconds

Sixth Durant 9 minutes 0 seconds

Seventh Gesson Allen 8 minutes 30 seconds

Eighth Reus O'Neal 8 minutes 17 seconds

Ninth Doncic 7 minutes 35 seconds

Tenth Ryan Dunn 7 minutes 25 seconds

It can be seen that many of Markanen's main defense are the main scorers of the opponent's team. Let's not mention the defensive effect, just this level of defense can be considered hell level.

If you look at it from the perspective of salary, Markkanen's NBA career has been very successful. He is also the strongest player in Finnish basketball history. Sometimes a player does need some luck to achieve success in his career. Career is like a journey. How far you can go depends on strength, but luck is the intuition when choosing a fork in the road. When you reach the end, no matter what you see, whether you see beautiful scenery or desolate landforms, the most important thing is the enjoyment process, but I still hope that Markkanen will see beautiful scenery in the end.