On the beat: Lauri Markkanen may have met his biggest fans in NYC

NEW YORK — In a run-of-the-mill gym on the island of Oahu, Lauri Markkanen paused as Kelly Olynyk's eyes grew with astonishment. That's as good a place as any to start a Markkanen-Finland story.

Well, at least it could have been.

See, on that day, Olynyk pried over my shoulder as Deseret News reporter Sarah Todd and I were interviewing Markkanen during Jazz training camp in Hawaii. Such a move is commonplace in the NBA reporting world. Players will interrupt interviews to crack jokes or ask their own (often silly) questions.

Olynyk did none of that. Instead, his gaze caught our phones and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

The screens showed every word that Markkanen had just been saying, transcribing his quotes in real time. (Yeah, yeah, AI may take my job one day; until then, I'm taking full advantage of it.)

"Wait, this just does your job for you now? That's crazy!" Olynyk said.

Markkanen glanced down at the screens and a sly smile spread on his face.

"I should just speak Finnish, so you can't do that," Markkanes said. "Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll start that tomorrow. You get today off."

Thankfully, that turned out to be an empty threat; however, I didn't know that at the time. Almost immediately after that interview concluded, I downloaded a language-learning app and was off to work. I was able to get some basic greetings down and could say common conversational phrases, but as Markkanen continued to speak in English, the learning quickly fizzled out.

Flash forward to Monday in Brooklyn.

About an hour before the Jazz and Nets were set to tip-off, Markkanen strolled out to the Barclays Center Court for his usual pregame routine. In the stands were six women who may just be the biggest Markkanen fans in the world — including those in Utah.

Four of them wore Markkanen's Finnish National Team jersey, one donned a black Markkanen Jazz uniform, and the last sported the No. 23 purple mountain Utah jersey. They had five signs that spelled out "LAURI," and they held sticks with Markkanen's head attached.

Once Markkanen was done warming up, he walked over to the front row and they excitedly ran down the steps to meet with their hero. Markkanen signed the jerseys and spoke with them for a few moments before heading back to the locker room.

I approached one of the fans wanting to get a little of their backstory.

"Hei, minu nuimi on, Ryan," I said, introducing myself in Finnish.

That was apparently convincing enough to receive a lot of Finnish words back in return. Words that, unfortunately, I didn't understand at all.

Markkanen, though, was able to fill in the gaps.

"Every time we come to New York there are a lot of Finnish people," Markkanen said. "I would assume a lot of them travel from Finland. It happened to be a back-to-back so it's a chance to see two games in a short period of time. It's always cool to see the fans. I know some of them are just a fan of the game and that's always good to see."

When asked about the idea of people traveling across the ocean just to see him play basketball, Markkanen said: "I'm sure they come to New York for other reasons, too. But it is cool to always have such a good fan base that people travel so it's always cool. New York is a quick fight — compared to Salt Lake — and there's a lot of other things to do here."

Still, it is a crazy thought that fans will build a trip around him. Or even just recognize him far away from Salt Lake City and Finland.

"It is kind of surreal to either have people coming in across the ocean or people acknowledging you on the streets of New York," he said. "You're in a d different city and people still recognize you. I don't think you ever get used to it. So that's cool."

There was most definitely a better story to tell about the six Finnish Markkanen diehards. Unfortunately, I didn't learn enough to be able to tell it. But, to use Markkanen's words, it was still pretty cool.

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