Kasparas Jakučionis Early Miami Heat Role? | What Erik Spoelstra’s Past Minutes For Rookies Suggests

Kasparas Jakučionis Early Miami Heat Role? | What Erik Spoelstra’s Past Minutes For Rookies Suggests

hey welcome on in guys tobin here with you and thanks for checking out the channel hope you’re doing well there hope you’re enjoying your Saturday night if you guys could subscribe that’d be great if you don’t go to hell i’m just kidding i’m I just kidding thank you for stopping by but also you’re dead to me no I’m I’m just messing around thank you uh thank you hit the like button at least i guess if you’re not going to subscribe hit the like button comment call me a dummy in the comments i don’t care um so one of the things that’s interesting with this uh this this upcoming draft for your Miami Heat right the Miami Heat they’ve just uh drafted Casperis Yakonis from Lithuania Illinois fighting a Lionai 19 years old a young buck and I think everybody is wondering that uh is this guy going to get a chance to play is this going to be a guy who really gets a chance to go out there eric Spolstra the knock on him from the the as as Tony Furantino calls us the pseudo experts um will he actually play the young fella and so I was actually curious about this and I did a a little bit of like looking back at Eric Spolstra’s time with young rookies and who he played who he didn’t play is this a fair criticism from the fans is this something that is a concern will he actually dive into this because I think a lot of people have the idea right now is Spo hates rookies he’s not going to play him and if you go over the the span of Eric Spolstra there there’s truths to it and there’s not truths there have been guys who get frozen out and there have been guys who have lost minutes probably two particular recent cases that have really scoped everybody’s mind on that more so than some others but it I taking a little look back i look back at the minutes of other players in Heat history now the way I went about this all right this is my own cockami system is I went by Miami Heat players who are rookies and under the drinking age okay I put one exception in there it was for Precious Chichua because he was drafted under the rookie under the drinking age he turned 21 right before the season started so I counted him but everybody else so in mind Haime Hakez don’t count him shabbaz Napier didn’t count him norris Cole didn’t count them these are the youngans i’m talking about like they drafted them maybe they got a year of experience maybe they got no college basketball experience what have they gotten in playing time in Eric Spolster’s tenure as Miami Heat head coach so we’re going to start recently which was Kell Wear last year now Kel Wear in his time with the Miami Heat he last year averaged 22.2 minutes per game got to play 64 games there was a lot of DNPs there early on he got to start 36 he averaged nine points and 7.4 rebounds and over a block a game he ended up finishing on the team 10th in minutes it’s a little cocky because there is Jimmy Butler in there so if you want to say he was top 10 in minutes we’ll take Jimmy Butler out because it was kind of a weird year for him that’s fine but if you look at how his minutes kind of fluctuated he went from November where he started no games played nine of them and he was getting about seven minutes a game and then we got to December he only played a handful of games and he was getting just under 14 it really was and it did take until January where things really got into real playing time for Kel Wear where he got 24 25 minutes a game 27 minutes in uh February 26 minutes in March and 27 minutes in April and started becoming a regular thing he made his way into the starting lineup so it probably took um you know about half the season but he did do a lot of sitting and so I think that’s kind of one of the freshest things on your mind when it comes to players like this is like um he just didn’t play very much that wasn’t a thing the year beforehand we had Haime Hawkins as I said I’m not counting him but as far as rookie goes he really did buck the trend he got about 20 minutes a game and was actually fifth in in overall minutes per game for the Miami Heat in his rookie season he dropped all the way to 11th this year in his second year nico’s another one because Nicoolola Yovic he was 19 when he was on the roster rookie year barely played 13 and a half minutes per game but he played just 13 games like it was as red shirt a year there was a back injury there mind you five and a half points per game was basically a red shirt season for him didn’t exist very much that this guy was was going out there and the Miami Heat were in a position where they brought this kid in and it was different from anybody else they really had because they didn’t really mess with uh they didn’t mess with it too much as far as uh as far as like the European players from this in this case Serbia where he was making his way into league You can go look at some of the I have like old videos of Yovic you can go look on the YouTube channel of like videos from him working out with Karan Butler and he looks like a stick it’s It’s crazy to see how much weight he put on so that’s one of those where like I kind of got it like I understood why the Heat were so slow rolled with him and really it was almost like a year and a half red shirt it wasn’t until like halfway through his second season that he really got a chance to to get some playing time and and once they actually even got you know like he never played in the playoffs but he was probably as much of a project as the Heat have had recently as anybody so that was a noticeable thing 2122 didn’t have anybody 2021 I put pressure to chew it with a little bit of asterisk because it was a COVID year he just turned 21 right before the season played 61 games that year just started four of them he averaged 12.1 minutes per game that season five points three rebounds uh in the playoffs that year played garbage time in the Buck series uh the interesting thing about him when you look at Precious’s minutes that year is he’s the rare player that the Heat had that his minutes went down it was an odd thing like he was averaging early on in the season about 16 minutes so he wasn’t playing a ton but it went from slowly like 15 to 16 minutes but once you got to like and and mind you this was a co season season started in December so a little bit of a wonkiness there but he played more as the season started than as the season went on and he was getting like you look it goes from like 16 minutes in his 15 games in January a game to 11 minutes to 9 minutes to 11 minutes in uh in in April um you know so he was basically just getting a couple of of blows in there to maybe give Bam a little bit of breathing room but that was uh that was definitely a fascinating one where like the heat normally you get to the heat and it’s like oh you are absolutely like gonna slow roll being the system and Precious is the one where it’s like yeah he started off he had a roll and then all of a sudden you could even like look at his production like he was averaging like seven eight points a game to like 438 uh 4 three 3.8 eight in uh February March April very strange very strange but I it did go like these are not you know monster numbers i think if you look at anybody like Kell’s Kell was able to buck the trend more so than anybody as far as these other two guys were concerned um then you have one of the guys who really was able to to to buck the trend and as a 19-year-old turned uh turned 20 through the middle of his rookie year but Tyler Herro is you know one of like the the the the rookie outliers as far as like hey came in his rookie season Jimmy Butler’s first year provided scoring pop he was playing 27.4 minutes per game his rookie season in 55 games he was eighth in minutes on the team he averaged 13 and a half points 4.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists but the thing with Tyler uh there’s a couple things that were interesting here that that uh that really popped in his uh in looking at his rookie season and what came across um and it was the minutes stayed pretty consistent all the way throughout the scoring went down a little bit so you could see like there was a little bit of a you know there was a little bit of a probably like some bit of a rookie wall that he hit and then he of course ended up with a pretty gnarly ankle injury at the in about February where he was banged up and done and then COVID hits and the season gets shut down and he kind of gets like this chance to revitalize himself and one of the things that’s interesting to look at with Hero that you know maybe wasn’t remembered but in the playoffs Tyler Herro was playing almost 34 minutes a game in the playoffs in the bubble run 16 points a game so more than he did when he played in the regular season more rebounds more assists shot 38% from three in the bubble and um played 21 games so like a pretty you know a pretty sizable you’re talking like you know almost a third of what his season was like he played 55 games in the regular season 21 in the playoffs that season and I mean I think one of the things that’s interesting you know if we could tie in the Precious Sichua thing I was talking about this on the draft show the other night because everybody goes to the Precious Chichua draft and you talk about Precious Tyrese Maxi but I think people like one of the things that’s crazy about Tyler is the rookie bubble run was really really special by him and it really I think put people in perspective of like hey we don’t need to draft another guard you know we got Goron and Goran had a multi-year deal now Goran was getting a little bit long in the tooth so I obviously you look the Heat whiffed i’m not saying that they didn’t whiff but I I understand why the Heat didn’t go guard there with Tyrese Maxi it made some semblance of sense back then but and and the other thing that stands out with the Tyler Hero is just like man he has not had a playoffs that good in his career since like that playoff run by him was like truly something to behold like you go to the last two years and yes the scoring will be more but it’s four and five games so it’s not really a sustained the year before that was a one year in the in the Milwaukee series but the other two that had like you know a sustainability like just not at that level that he was in that series and dealt and has dealt with some injuries so that is uh that is a crazy thing but that that that playoff run by him the numbers the numbers do speak they were uh they were impressive that rookie year and he really did uh buck the trend of it we go to Bama Bio there was none in 2018-19 no rookies to speak of that were uh in this category of young rookie bam Adabio 2017 18 turned 20 just before the season bam Adabio averaged 18.9 minutes 69 games that season only 19 starts he was ninth on the team in in uh minutes per game um couple of caveats in that you could say he was a little bit higher because you had Dion Wade and he was actually 11th i’m I’m putting a caveat in it because yeah Dion Waiters only played 30 games that year dwade comes in for the last in plays 22 um but yes his minutes you know he and he talks about this plenty like I didn’t get to play my rookie year wasn’t a thing and if you look at Bam Adobio he was more in the yolk of slow rolled it you know got to uh you know got to play a very little early on you know no starts in December he got to play a little bit more i don’t remember there was injury i remember Son Whites had like had like a hand so I don’t know if that was like playing into it but he got more minutes than the most starts he had up until March in December where he was playing like 24 and a half minutes a game he was averaging about eight and five that season and so you’re starting to kind of see some stints of it then it goes down he doesn’t start any games in January plays just 20 minutes a game ticks up a little bit in February then goes down so he’s kind of in this 20 minute range for uh for the rest of the season with uh with that and then you know you get to the playoffs I believe they get gentleman swept by the Philadelphia 76ers but you know he always looks back and it is like I didn’t get to play i didn’t get to do anything i didn’t get any shots and you know you look at his his numbers and his field goal attempts like it’s not a guy who got to got to light the world on fire from offense for sure i mean but uh and so that kind of goes more in it of like you’ll notice backcourt guy versus some of the bigs it’s it’s not as easy and obviously he’d had an established starting center there so a little bit hard for him to get minutes they had somebody there where he was getting blocked nobody the year before that in 2015 16 we have Justice Winslow who turned 19 just before getting drafted probably somebody you could look at as like the uh as far as minutes concerned and responsibilities concerned in a regular season one of the biggest outliers there are in fact average more minutes than anybody who’s in this category averaged almost 29 minutes a game as a rookie played 78 games his rookie season was seventh in minutes per game on the team that season um obviously was a bit of a jack of all trades he only averaged six.4 points a game five rebounds one and a half assist just under a steal a game um you know I’ve never really known as an offensive hub Justice Winslow but that was certainly like hey this guy is just a trust of he’s going to do a little bit of everything fans were falling in love with him some were like oh you know we had the whole debates about him versus Devin Booker back in the day and this guy could go out there and just you know swarm trusted him in the playoffs as he’s out there and he’s absolutely uh you know he’s stomping uh you know he’s he’s in in playoff series he’s like going and he’s stepping on Joel Embiid’s mask you’re just like I love this kid I love his toughness I love everything that he’s about um just a just a true guy that Eric Spoler trusted to do the right thing and mind you he was a key cog in a championship Duke team so he comes in with a pedigree somewhat but people were want like You know there was a big thought that man Justice Winszo dropping of the Miami Heat the Heat were in a in a big big way and you could and and you look back at his minutes and you could just look like hey it was like steady as they go was getting about almost 30 uh almost 30 a game from 19 years old i mean Spo just absolutely trusted the guy and went to him a ton and obviously you know Justice wasn’t necessarily like looked upon as like a straight point guard i think everybody there was more of a thought of like hey that’s probably what his most comfortable role is ball in his hand facilitating i think if he had his way that’s uh that’s where it would have ended up but uh you know it was interesting but the interesting thing also about Justice is Justice was also a big turning point for the Heat because there was a big stint here where Spo didn’t have any guys who were under this category in fact he didn’t have anybody in the age range of Justice Winslow that was drafted for the Heat since his first season with Michael Beasley you had none in 1415 you had Shabbaz Napier older rookie James Andis none in the big three eras you had Norris Cole as an older rookie dexter Pitman wasn’t in this age range and then you go back to the first season and you had Michael Beasley who was 19 turning 20 in the middle of his first year and Bees you know played 24 almost 25 minutes a game played 81 games his rookie year he was seventh on the team in minutes um 13.9 points per game that year he averaged 5.4 rebounds one assist did not have a good playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks that year um but you know he was 19 20 years old but it was interesting looking back at all this and looking at the guys that Eric Spolstra has had as rookies and that young um the guys who really stand out are the backcourt guys are the guys like Justice Winslow and Tyler Herro that those guys he did trust those guys a little bit more and so I did all this just to kind of throw into the Casper Yakonis um food for thought this year is maybe it’s not crazy to think that Spo will actually give him some some good chunk of minutes he doesn’t look like a guy who’s going to be physically overwhelmed i mean people talk about his size seeing some of the physique that he has carrying with him already seeing his interview with Cooper Mo a lot of talk of him being in the weight room he’s really seemed to put a big focus on that so I think that that is a uh I think that’s an encouraging thing but you know you look at guys like Tyler and you look at guys like Justice i’m like you know what those those guys did get the opportunity from Eric Spolstra more so than the bigs who like once Kell got going he got going nico got no minutes precious fell out of favor bam was kind of just like a steady bit role like he played his role and he played it well um but he wasn’t a feature guy he was basically a rim runner go defend your ass off and play your ass off and then you know as Assan was kind of falling out of favor there was more leaning into Bam Adabio for this team um but Justice was like truly trusted by Spo early on in his career really really he he got a lot of it and that was different from you know something that he had had i don’t really look too much back to the bees times because dude Eric Sper was what was he 38 when he was coaching back then like he was ridiculous like I to to hold anything to Eric Spolster’s coaching that long ago uh it seems a little unfair and you know he also it’s not like he didn’t play now were there fourth quarters where like hey would he would maybe not there were times that they could nitpick on game yeah sure but you know he still was his number two overall pick it’s not like he was icing him out completely even though I don’t think like you know bees completely love to be in but you know it’s a weird situation you have a Dwayne Wade in his prime you have some other vets you then get O’Neal and Jamario Moon and you know this uh this roster that has some turnover with it to try and figure things out but uh you know Casper Yakonis okay you know if he was a center I think I would be more like oh he’s going to get he’s going to get the the cold shoulder for at least half the season there’s a possibility looking at this and even if you wanted to out stretch it out to other rookies like older rookies we mentioned the Hawz thing kendrick Nun a guy that he started an undrafted rookie you know I’m kind of broadening the scope a little bit for older but I’m talking about like 19 years old like Cass is coming into the league will Spo actually give that guy some trust especially in a position he needs there was the whole clip with him and Adam Simon of like hey you got your point guard now so do with that what you will but that’s kind of the overlook of what Spo has done with super young rookies over their careers

Miami Heat fans are concerned that Kasparas Jakučionis will be riding the bench at the young age of 19. So Tobin looks at how much playing time young rookies under Erik Spoelstra have actually received.
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