Report: The Utah Jazz key player is been suspended from all sports for placing a bets against…..

Both The Ringer and CBS, for example, have Markkanen at No. 31.

The Ringer calls Markkanen a “Positional anomaly who leverages the threat of his lights-out jumper for all it’s worth.”

CBS, meanwhile, writes, “Markkanen is 27 years old, just entering his prime, but the Jazz aren’t close to competing.

You wonder about that marriage of those timelines, but you can bet Danny Ainge has a plan and that Markkanen, a seven-foot sniper who averaged 23 and 8 last season on a better true-shooting clip that Kevin Durant, is central in it.”

ESPN, meanwhile, has Markkanen at No. 33.

“The five-year, $238 million contract Markkanen signed off a renegotiation and extension is strong proof that the Jazz believe that the 27-year-old forward can be a foundation player after the franchise’s rebuild pays dividends,” writes Tim MacMahon.

“There aren’t many 7-foot scorers as versatile as Markkanen, who has averaged 24.5 points per game on .490/.395/.885 shooting splits in his two seasons in Utah.”

HoopsHype has Markkanen just a few spots down from 31, at No. 34, writing, “Even despite proving he can be an All-Star as a team’s No. 1, Markkanen might actually be best suited to be a second or third option on a playoff contender, something he would have been able to display in Golden State.

Instead, though, at least for 2024-25 (the Finnish big man is ineligible to be traded for all of next season), we’ll get to see Markkanen continue to put up big numbers on a rebuilding team.

That’s not the worst thing for Utah fans, at least, who will be able to enjoy watching Markkanen’s tough bucket-getting from the 4-spot and his floor-spacing ability from beyond the arc.”