With its large reindeer population and fiercely protected traditional claim that Santa Claus lives in Rovaniemi, Finland at Christmastime sounds picturesque.
And then there's the Markkanen household in the province of Lapland.
"During Christmas, people always have traditions they do. We had a traditional thing where we played ice hockey and basketball," Pekka Markkanen said via phone. "Whoever was in the house _ grandparents, mothers _ had to play. And everybody wanted to play."
Pekka is the 6-foot-10 father of Lauri, whom the Bulls will introduce Tuesday after acquiring his draft rights as the seventh overall NBA draft pick from the Timberwolves on Thursday as one of the centerpieces in the Jimmy Butler trade.
Pekka averaged 6.9 points for coach Roy Williams in a 30-5 1989-90 season at Kansas and played professionally for several years in Spain, Hungary, Germany, France and Finland. His wife, the 5-foot-10-inch Riikka, had a stint playing for the Finnish national team.
Their oldest son, Eero, plays soccer _ or what is called football everywhere else in the world _ professionally in Sweden. And their second son, Miikka, played basketball professionally in Finland before injuries curtailed his career.
And then there's Lauri, the tallest of them all at a legit 7 feet.
"I think Lauri is special," Pekka said. "Of course all our kids have a professional aptitude for sport. But I have never met a person who is so focused on one thing. Whatever he does _ what he eats, when he sleeps _ he always thinks how it affects his basketball."
This has been a long-standing ... what's the word: habit? problem? practice? obsession?
A Finnish youth coach recently rediscovered a diary Lauri kept at age 10 detailing how many hours he worked on his shot and shared the information with Pekka. Lauri spent 4{ hours every day perfecting the form that helped him shoot 42.3 percent from 3-point range and average 15.6 points for a 32-5 team in his lone season at Arizona.
"There were several times where we had to say, 'You're done' _ just to rest him," Joe Pasternack said of Markkanen's prodigious practice habits.
Pasternack helped recruit Markkanen to Arizona and worked as Sean Miller's assistant last season before earning the UC Santa Barbara head coaching job in April. He still remembers the first time he watched film of Markkanen sent to him by Hanno Mottola, who played two years in the NBA before coaching Markkanen at the Helsinki Basketball Academy.
"I couldn't believe someone his size was so skilled," Pasternack said by phone. "He was running off stagger screens, driving the ball, scoring inside and out. He was playing like a guard.
"Then we met him and realized how very, very serious he is about basketball. His maturity level is way beyond his years. He's like a 28-year-old pro. He's not a partier. He wasn't about the college life. He was just concerned about when he could get in the gym, how often he could get in the gym, whether he could get managers to rebound for him. He's consumed with basketball."
It always has been so.
His parents encouraged all three sons to engage in any sport that interested them. Lauri dabbled in soccer and ice hockey. But one day after scoring a hat trick in soccer, he came home with an announcement.
"He said, 'This is not for me,' " Pekka recalled, laughing.
Eero is almost six years older than Lauri, 20. Miikka has four years on him. To say the outdoor games were competitive is like saying it gets cold in Finland in the winter.
"Being so much younger, Lauri lost a lot. It was a tough time for him," Pekka said. "It always has been huge, strong competition between all the brothers. Day by day, as he started growing, he got more competitive."
Sometimes, to even up the teams, Pekka would team up with Lauri for epic games of two-on-two. But this competitiveness calms when it comes to accepting coaching.
"He was zero maintenance," Miller said from his Arizona office.
Miller pointed out how Markkanen already has played with a 24-second shot clock under FIBA rules.
"And I think what will allow him to contribute immediately (in the NBA) is his ability to shoot," Miller said.
Miller knows Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg well from their shared college coaching days.
"Fred has a great offensive mind. When he was at Iowa State, he was always very creative in how he would utilize different players to create opportunities to shoot 3s. Lauri will help that," Miller said. "When he sets the ball screen, teams have to pay attention to him. And when he's not setting it, he's such a threat in catch-and-shoot.
"I have a good feeling that this pick will be looked back on as a very, very good moment for the Bulls."
It needs to be. The Bulls are rebuilding now, and draft hits have to be the norm.
Lauri recently asked his father to play in a game with him. Citing some knee issues, Pekka, 50, declined.
"It was a nice idea and thank you but I let the young guys play," Pekka said. "It's their time now. Lauri has spoken to me for many, many years that his goal is not to get to the NBA. His goal is to make a long career in the NBA."
