Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen is entering his 10th season in the NBA, playing for three franchises and not appearing in one playoff game.
It's a strange annotation hanging over one of the more efficient offensive stretch bigs in the league right now. Markkanen has played in 492 regular-season games — good for 12th all-time among players who have never seen the postseason. He is trailing Miles Bridges by nine games amid active players.
If the Jazz fail to make the postseason this year, he could climb up that leaderboard and reach the top 10.
Markkanen entered the league in 2017 as the seventh pick, a stretch-four out of Arizona with a jumper that made scouts salivate. During his first few years, the Bulls could never figure out the right fit for Markkanen
During his rookie year, Markkanen went off for a 49-point flurry and finished runner-up for the Rookie of the Year award. A one-year detour to Cleveland acted more as a placeholder.
Then he arrived in Utah.
The Jazz were able to let Markkanen loose. In 2023, he was named to his first All-Star team and was awarded the Most Improved Player.
He's been a vital piece in Salt Lake City, but he's also been losing consistently in Salt Lake City, because the Jazz have spent his years rebuilding and stripping away players for picks while he racks up empty box scores.
In October of last season, Markkanen dropped 51 points on the San Antonio Spurs in overtime. It was the first time since Karl Malone in 1998 that a Jazz player eclipsed the 50-point mark in a game.
That night, it was vintage Markkanen, six 3-pointers and catching lobs left and right.
It was also a perfect symbol of his career. It was also a perfect symbol of his career: flashes of brilliance, one signature game, no postseason stakes attached. After all, it was a game in October.
It's not that Markkanen has been bad in must-win games or disappeared in big moments. He's never gotten to those big moments.
The consistent losing isn't solely based on him. It's been by design, a front office betting on the draft lottery and their rookies.
Every season that passes without a Jazz playoff berth is a season added to a streak that already ranks among the longest active droughts. He may be the most talented player on that list.
There's no bitterness in how Markkanen talks about it publicly, and there is no need for that from his perspective. He's 29, in his prime and still building something in Utah that looks more promising by the month. If the Jazz rebuild runs another year or two, as most rebuilds do, the numbers will keep trending upward.
The Jazz are hoping the timeline bends before that happens, before zero playoff appearances define Markkanen's career.