Lauri Markkanen Dodges Major Injury, Listed as Day-to-Day with Sprained Wrist

The collective blood pressure in Salt Lake City just dropped back to a normal human level. Lauri Markkanen has officially dodged a massive bullet.

According to NBA insider Michael Scotto, the Utah Jazz star avoided a serious injury and has been diagnosed with a sprained right wrist. He is expected to be listed as day-to-day moving forward.

"Michael Scotto reported that Markkanen avoided a serious injury and is day-to-day."

For a franchise that is already stumbling out of the gates, this is the best possible news. The Jazz are sitting at a bleak 1-3 to start the season, and their injury report already reads like a battlefield triage unit with multiple rotation guys sidelined.

Losing your primary scoring engine before Halloween is usually the kind of disaster that forces a front office to start looking at lottery odds. Instead, Utah gets to keep their franchise cornerstone in the mix, even if he needs a few days of ice and tape.

A sprained wrist on your shooting hand is basically the basketball equivalent of a check-engine light. You can technically still drive the car, but every time you pull up from deep, you are praying the transmission does not fall out.

This day-to-day tag is a massive swing for the betting markets as Utah prepares to host the San Antonio Spurs on October 29. The Jazz are currently averaging just 112.8 points per game and shooting a miserable 32.6 percent from three-point range.

Without Markkanen on the floor to stretch the defense, those offensive numbers would plummet from bad to unwatchable. He is the only thing keeping opposing defenses honest right now.

Keep a close eye on the shootaround reports before the Spurs game. If Markkanen ends up in street clothes, expect the scoring burden to fall heavily on whatever healthy bodies Utah has left, which might just be the coaching staff at this rate.