Lauri Markkanen comes from a family of athletes, in which his parents are both professional basketball players. After a year of successful college basketball, Lauri Markkanen left the remaining three college years to sign up for the NBA draft. He was then selected in the first round by the Minnesota Timberwolves as the 7th pick in the 2017 draft, but was signed by the Chicago Bulls later that year and continues to flourish with the team throughout his career.
Lauri Markkanen Bio
Lauri Markkannen was born in Vantaa, Finland on May 22, 1997, under the full name of Lauri Elias Markkannen as the son of his parents Pekka and Rikka Markkanen, but grew up in Jyvaskyla, a town 136 miles from his birthplace. His father, Pekka Markkanen, played basketball at the University of Kansas but could not play professionally, and his mother, Rikka Markkanen, played actively for the Finnish national team.
It is also worth knowing that his brothers were not excluded from family sports, as his oldest brother Eero, a professional soccer player who plays for the Swedish soccer team AIK but is currently on loan to FC Randers, and his second brother Mikka was a professional basketball player before the injury made his life difficult and ended his career abruptly.
Lauri attended the Helsinki Academy in Helsinki, Finland, and moved from Finland to the United States after graduating from high school, where he studied at the prestigious University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, graduating in 2017.
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Basketball Career
Lauri Markkanen began his basketball career when he moved to the United States in 2015. After playing for a year on his college basketball team at the University of Arizona, he decided to move directly into the NBA. He was selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the seventh pick in the first round of the draft. He was then traded with basketball players Zach Lavine and Kris Dunn for Jimmy Butler and Justin Patton at the Chicago Bulls, who officially signed him in July.
Lauri made his debut with the Bulls on October 19, 2017, scoring a total of 17 points in his first game. A week later, he scored 10 3-point records, setting an NBA record for the most 3-point players ever in the first three games of an NBA career. On December 30, the player set a career-high of 32 points and 7 setbacks in his team’s win over the Indiana Pacers (119-107).
Lauri Markkanen started the new year with élan on January 18th with an impressive game, scoring 33 points in 46 minutes in his team’s win against the New York Knicks and was named the second 7-footer to score eight 3-pointer in a game behind Dirk Nowitzki. Also in January, he scored 17 points against the Milwaukee Bucks and after these points, he scored 721 points in his professional career, breaking the record of Hanno Mottola, a Finnish player who scored 715 career points in the NBA, making him the second Finnish player with such high scores in the NBA.
Lauri Markkanen’s efforts were crowned with success when he was named NBA All-Rookie First Team on May 22, 2018.
Is The NBA Star Married Or Have A Girlfriend?
When we investigate Lauri Markkanen’s private life, we find that the NBA star is currently not married but is in a long-standing romantic relationship with Verna Aho, a Finnish woman who also happens to be the mother of his son Verna, whom the couple welcomed in early January this year. Since things seem to be going pretty well for the couple, who knows? a walk down the aisle might well be possible in the near future.
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Other Facts About The Lauri Markkanen
Lauri Markkanen is a gracious and gigantic built guy with a height of 7 ft 0 in about 2.13 m and is said to have a weight of 104 kg, which is about 240 lbs.
Lauri Markkanen, who is currently under contract with the Chicago Bulls, where he has a base salary of $4,536,120, which is expected to rise to $5,300,400 next season with the Bulls. Currently, the player’s net worth from his current earnings is estimated at around $2 million.