Lauri Markkanen's wrist sprain is two fractures in his right hand, and the Jazz will not look at him again for four weeks

For two games the Jazz called it a sprained right wrist, and on Wednesday they gave it its real name. Lauri Markkanen has two non-displaced fractures in his right hand and will be reevaluated in four weeks, the team announced, in reporting carried by Yahoo Sports and by CBS Sports, which described him as out for at least a month. ESPN had the news first, citing sources, and the team said the injury happened during last Friday's game in Dallas, which by our box score was the night he made eight of his 15 threes and scored 24 points in 34 minutes.

A reevaluation in four weeks puts the first real look at his hand around December 9, and a fracture rarely ends with a player back on the night he is cleared, so a manager should plan on him missing most of the next month and treat anything sooner as a bonus. He was not alone on the bench in Tuesday's 115-109 loss to Miami, either: the Associated Press recap listed Utah without four starters, Markkanen with the wrist, Keyonte George with an ankle, Jaren Jackson Jr. with a knee and Jusuf Nurkic with a foot, and the Jazz have now lost nine in a row.

Where our board has him, and why that will change

Our live projections were rebuilt after Tuesday's games and before the diagnosis, so they still read Markkanen's absence as a short one: 64 projected games, which leaves him 56th on our points board under ESPN's standard scoring and 27th on our 9-cat board, against an analysts' consensus of 42nd and 27th. The four weeks are not yet in that number. When the projections read the fracture his projected games will fall, his rank on both boards will fall with them, and the line he produces when he plays, 22.3 points and 3.2 threes a game in our projection, will stay where it is.

His start had been uneven before the hand. Across eight games he averaged 18.0 points on 38.9% shooting with 3.6 threes, by the season averages our projections keep, and the eight-three night in Dallas was his best three-point night of the year. That is the player a manager in a 12-team league is holding in an injured reserve slot, and the threes are what a roster will miss most in categories.

Ace Bailey and Darryn Peterson took the shots on Tuesday

With both of Utah's leading scorers out, the AP recap called Ace Bailey and Darryn Peterson "Utah's two teenagers", and they scored 23 and 25. Bailey's 23 came on 10-of-15 shooting in 35 minutes, his best scoring night of the season by a distance, since his previous high in our box scores was 19. Our points board moved him from 128th to 121st after the game and our 9-cat board from 134th to 126th, against a consensus of 150th and 168th, and his blocks, 1.2 a game so far, are the part of his line that makes him useful in categories even on the nights the shots do not fall.

Peterson nearly matched his career high of 26 for the second game in a row, the AP noted, and he has now scored 21, 26 and 25 in his last three games while playing 30 to 35 minutes. He sits 113th on our points board and 150th on our 9-cat board, close to a consensus of 113th and 130th, and his five turnovers on Tuesday are the reminder that a 19-year-old handling more of the ball will give some of it away.

Isaiah Collier is a name to watch, not yet to add

The surprise of the night was Isaiah Collier, who the AP recap described as a poor shooter who had not made a three this season before he made four in a row in the fourth quarter. He finished with 17 points and five assists in 24 minutes off the bench, matching his most minutes of the season. Our points board has him 222nd and he is outside our 9-cat board's useful range entirely, so one hot quarter does not make him a pickup in a standard league, but if George's ankle keeps him out for a stretch, Collier is the guard most likely to inherit the minutes, and a deep-league manager should check Utah's injury report before Wednesday's game against Orlando.

What to do

Move Markkanen to an injured reserve slot if your league has one and keep him, since a top-60 player who returns in December is worth more than any replacement on the wire. In leagues without one, a 12-team roster can hold him through a month only if its bench is otherwise healthy. Add Bailey in 9-cat leagues for the blocks and the rising role, pick up Peterson where scoring is the need, and leave Collier on the wire until we know how long George is out. We wrote earlier this season about what Nurkic's absence meant for Utah's frontcourt, and with Markkanen out as well, Utah will be leaning on its teenagers for weeks rather than nights.

Every player in this story is on the fantasy basketball rankings and the 2026-27 projections, and the NBA depth charts show where each one stands in his team’s rotation tonight.