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SALT LAKE CITY — Lauri Markkanen knew the time would eventually come; it does for all Finnish adult males.
His home country mandates military service conscription of all adult males by the age of 30. That's for everyone — even NBA All-Stars. So after the season, Markkanen, who will turn 26 next month, will head to a base in Finland to serve time in his country's military.
On Saturday, ahead of the Jazz's home finale, he discussed the unconventional start to his offseason with the Utah media.
"We're not going to be playing in the postseason this year, so it's going to be a good time to do it now," he said. "Instead of just postponing it and then eventually having to do it in a time that wouldn't work so well for me. Obviously, I've never been, so we'll see how it goes."
Markkanen admitted he didn't know much about what was awaiting him. He mostly shrugged when asked what he'd been doing during his tenure, though, he expressed confidence that it won't have an impact on his preparations for next season.
"I'm going to a place where there's a lot of athletes; I'm sure they've dealt with different professional athletes before," he said.
As for how long he'll be serving, that also was a bit up in the air. Typically, Finnish males serve for six months to a year, but for those in similar situations as Markkanen (like professional hockey players, for example) they have been able to split up their service over the course of their league's offseason.
So Markkanen may not be done serving after this offseason.
"You could have to do it two separate summers because, obviously, the summers aren't long enough for us to do it in one summer," he said. "So we'll see how many days we get to knock out this summer and go from there."
As for his Jazz teammates and coaches … well, they can't really relate to what he's about to embark on.
"He lives in a country that has different requirements than we do," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "It takes you by surprise when you hear that. It's something that he and I have been talking about all year. Also, with the state of the world these days, it's never a good feeling when you have somebody that you're close with going into the military."
Hardy said he simply hopes that Markkanen will stay and come back healthy.
"It'll be interesting to see him in a military uniform and how all that goes, but I think it's, obviously, something that he's been preparing for mentally for a while. We'll try to support him in every way that we can," he said.
Markkanen, though, didn't seem overly concerned about what lies ahead in Finland. He's had friends go through it, as well as his two brothers. While he doesn't know exactly what is in store, he doesn't think it's anything to stress about.
"They're mostly probably 18-year-olds who just graduated from high school," Markkanen said. "So I'm sure there's gonna be some stuff that I know how to do that I might have not known at 18. I'm sure it starts with pretty basic stuff."
