World Cup 2023: Lauri Markkanen and team Finland take on Lithuania in prep game

The Fiba World Cup is fastly approaching, and it looks like Lauri Markkanen is in prime shape as team Finland prepares for their first matches.

Markkanen has famously been completing his mandatory military service for Finland but is out now and is looking Rambo-esque in the pictures and video coming out of Finnish practices.

Markkanen had a breakout performance at Eurobasket before last season and it was a sign of things to come. Now, with Markkanen having had an all-star season with the Utah Jazz, it’s now a sign of what’s to come during the World Cup. Markkanen showed with the Jazz that he could be a lead option on a playoff-caliber team (when the Jazz were actually trying to win games) and now should have some serious numbers going into this World Cup leading team Finland.

For Jazz fans, it will be fun to watch Markkanen again, but it will also be interesting to see how he looks after his time in the military and if he has developed in different ways.

August 4th: Finland plays it’s first qualifier game tomorrow, August 4th at 11:00 AM MT against Jonas Valanciunas and Lithuania.

It appears you can watch the games on the Fiba Courtside App.

The Finland men’s basketball team will play their first world cup game on Friday, August 25th at 17:00 GMT +9 which appears to be 2:00 AM MT. It’s a late night, but should be a lot of fun.

We’ll update this article as more as world cup qualifiers and tournament games come.