I’m OBSESSED with Kasparas Jakucionis | Why He’ll THRIVE on the Miami Heat (Illinois Film Analysis)

I’m OBSESSED with Kasparas Jakucionis | Why He’ll THRIVE on the Miami Heat (Illinois Film Analysis)

Miami Heat summer league is just two days away and for the second year in a row, it’s looking like we’re going to have a squad that is absolutely ferocious. Of course, we got all the big men that we’ve been discussing like Vlad Golden and Steve Settle and Omar Balow and Dne Danger. But we’re going to need someone who can set up all those bigs. And what better guy to do that than our new demon, the ghost Kasparus Yakonis. And in today’s video, we’re going to break down some film from his freshman season at Illinois, and we’re going to be using Brady Hawk’s new thread. Of course, he does a great job on Twitter, but we can provide some further analysis in these videos. So, starting with the first tweet, you’re going to see a bunch of clips of Kasparus’s playmaking. Of course, he’s a very versatile playmaker, whether it’s in transition, out of the pick and roll, left hand, right hand. And the fact that he is 6’5 with a 68 wingspan kind of allows him to be creative as well, cuz he can see over the defense a little bit. We’re going to run it back from the first clip here in which he does a beautiful skip pass to his shooter in the top left wing. I’m wondering if this was a set play because the spacing is a little bit clunky from the beginning here. We don’t exactly know what it looked like a few seconds prior, but then the big man is going to do a nice job rolling to the rim here because he’s going to occupy both of these Oregon defenders, meaning that the Illinois shooters wide open in the top left wing. Casper is going to recognize that and then just throw a beautiful rocket with his right hand that the shooter is going to catch right in his shooting pocket right in the chest. That’s a perfect pass off a high IQ read by Casperis. And this next one is just a dot perfectly pinpoint dime on a rope to his teammate running in transition. We know the Heat struggle in transition. They could never seem to get an easy basket. Meanwhile, Casperus is out here literally throwing passes from behind be behind half court. Look where his feet are at when he starts to pass. And he’s going to throw it on a rope right to his teammate who’s going to cut right to the rim, get an easy layup. That’s something that he desperately need. In this clip here, we’re going to see him use another screen. That was one of the downsides we heard about him is that he needs a screen to get into the paint. There’s some clips we’ll see today where he doesn’t use use a screen. So, I’m not going to read too much into that. I mean, screens are a part of basketball. You’re going to use them sometimes. And on this one, he uses the screen to get that dribble penetration, which gets the defense moving. But the impressive thing about this pass is look when he starts to pass. He’s at the free throw line. his teammate is basically lateral with him. The defender’s a little bit in front of him. So, the only way that Casper can get this pass off is he has to angle it around the defender by outreaching his arms. You’ll see he does a two-handed bounce pass that’s right on the money to his teammate. And this is just an insane level of difficulty to be able to get that right to your guy where you got to put it. That’s really beautiful. And then in this next one, shows some good offball movement by Casperis because right here, he’s going to actually not start with the ball. The ball’s at the top of the key, but because he has a high IQ, he knows how to occupy empty space. And when he’s going to get this ball off the cut, he’s not going to sit around with it. He’s not going to twiddle his thumbs, he’s going to see this teammate right here who’s cutting from the weak side corner. And then Casper has three defenders around him, but that does not affect him. He’s going to wrap this pass right around the defender to his cutting teammate who just gets an easy lay. This is another very difficult pass from Casperis. And then this time sets sets the his his uh big man up on a silver platter for this layup. You’re going to see him come into the paint. He’s going to use a little bit of a slow step right here to kind of throw the defense off balance. Now he’s going to slow down to seal the defender on his right hip. This big man is going to step up. Casper is going to do a little bit of a shot fake here. And look at the defender Poptart. That boy jumping out of his shoes. And that’s going to leave his center wide open in the paint to get an easy layup. Once again, setting it up on a silver platter. Kind of reminds me a little bit of when like Trey Young will fake a a floater and then throw the lob pass to his big man. Not the exact same thing here, but when you are able to uh fake a pass while already driving into the paint, the defense is going to have to step up like it does right here. and then your teammate, your big man’s going to be wide open in the middle. So far, we’ve seen a lot of creativity on the passing end from Casperis. In this next tweet, Brady’s going to show a bunch of clips of Casperis using his body to get inside the paint and finish with some pretty strong layups. On the first one, he’s actually going to reject the screen that comes on the right side. His defense is going to be or the defense is going to be off balance. Caspers is going to get into the paint, use a nice bump there, probably pump fakes one or too many times. You can see off the initial bump right here, he’s wide open. The defense is able to recover, but because Casperis is not avoiding contact. He goes right through right through him and finishes with a two-hand layup. This time, he’s going to be on the left side of the court. Does an excellent job keeping that ball in his left hand, so that defender is sealed on his right hip. And then he doesn’t care that the shot blocker is coming in to help. He’s going to go in there very strong. gets just hammered, but still finishes with his left hand on the left side of the hoop. Uh, hits the ground, makes the layup, and one. This next time, he’s going to show excellent footwork. Once again, he’s going to get into the paint, use a little bit of an up fake to get both defenders jumping, and then does a step through to finish on the right side. Look how both defenders fall for that fake and then that it’s not a travel by the way because his gathers right here and then you are allowed to step through on the shot and that’s what he does. And still another offbalance layup by him too right here. That’s not even an easy one. Uh but definitely very crafty by him to basically pick up his dribble maybe a foot in from the free throw line but he’s still able to finish right at the rim. I don’t really like using the term crafty for white guys. I feel like it’s just something people kind of say, but in this case, I I mean, it’s true. Look at this next one by him, too, where he’s going to do basically a euro step to split the defense and finish with another off-balance layup. I mean, yes, he doesn’t have great handle. He doesn’t have great athleticism, but you overcome that by being crafty like this. He does a euro through three defenders here and then has the touch to finish with no backboard. Even he’s fallen down and still finishes his late with no backboard. That’s incredible touch. On this one, you’re going to see some more footwork. He’s going to give his defender a little bit of a bump right here to throw him off balance. Look how the defender’s feet are all spread apart. He’s basically slipping. So, now he has to recover hard. Casper knows that. So, he throws in this up fake. The defense jumps and he’s going to go right under the shot blocker. There’s the up fake. Now he’s able to scoop his hand right under the defense. This is another heady play by Casperis. Then in this next one, Brady kind of highlights his three-point shooting. We know that in college the three-point numbers weren’t great for Casper, but I do think he has a lot of potential in this league as a scorer because we just saw the driving game and I think his shot is pretty good. Also, it’s pretty versatile and the mechanics are very clean as well. We’ll run it back to this first clip here where he’s going to do a step back. So, a nice off dribble three once he sees the defense back off. Defensive defense made a mistake there. Both guys go to the roll man. Casperus is gonna make you pay when you make a mistake. I want to note too because we’ll see this in a later clip also. He does kind of kick his feet out on his base here. That’s going to make him sus susceptible to one of two things. Either a lot of offensive fouls because the refs won’t know that’s his normal shooting motion or once they learn that he kicks his feet out, he might get a lot of and ones because the defense is likely to fall into his landing space. On the next one, he actually doesn’t do that though. You can see he squares his feet up very nicely. I think his form there is excellent. Super quick release, too. But this one kind of reminds me of Duncan Robinson a little bit because you’re gonna see Casperis use his screen. The defense is going to hustle hard to get over the screen. But again, he has to recover because he was screened. So Casperis knows that the defense is going to be running hard on a on a hard closeout. So he’s going to pump fake. There’s the blow by. Casper squares his feet up, points his toes towards the rim, raises up, and just fires. I think this is an excellent use of a pump fake. On this next one, I have nothing else to say other than he was in his bag. We said the previous one looked like Duncan Robinson. This one looks like Tyler Herro in transition tween tween heat check, step back or side step, nothing but net. You don’t just wake up out of bed and do this type of thing. Like I know everyone looks good in highlights. Not everyone has a highlight of them doing this. This is part of the reason I’m optimistic on Casperis as a shooter. Then in this next clip, we’re going to see some catch and shoot action. Uh bit of a difficult one because he actually does pump fake for some reason. Didn’t need to, but that’s going to mean that he was a little bit uh out of rhythm. So the fact he was still able to knock it down off the catch is pretty encouraging. And then this next one, we’re going to just see another step back step back at the top of the key, that’s something he does like to do to create a lot of space. You’re going to see his feet kick out pretty far in this one, too. The defense actually does a great job to contest on the side of him so they don’t land in his landing space. Of course, when you kick your feet out, you also got to worry about twisting an ankle or something. Uh, but I think that’s just his natural shooting motion, at least off the step back. And yeah, he has great touch off the dribble and off the catch. Very versatile as a shooter as well. Uh, in the next tweet here, Brady mentions how one of the biggest things doubters would talk about in terms of Casper was his turnovers. had 3.7 a game in college. But that’s kind of what happens when you’re given the keys to run an entire offense at 18 years old with not a lot of great weapons. I mean, imagine how much easier it’ll be for him to playmake when he’s playing with guys like Bam Bailey and Khil Wear who have their kind of catch radius on the pick and roll or pick and lob. I don’t think you’re going to have that level of turnovers. And even if Casper does, like again, he’s 19 years old. He will learn as he gets older. I think being a young point guard is one of the hardest things to do in the league. But these are all just pretty much great plays. You’re going to see a pick and lob to his big man. This guy here can barely even dunk. That’s what I’m saying. Look, he lays it in. Imagine this is Khil Wear. It doesn’t even need to be as perfect a pass as Casperis put it here. Like you can throw that anywhere. Khil Wear will go up and get it. He’s just going to make life super easy for those guys. This one, another drive. Uh draw the defense. He’s drawing all the attention. Four guys are looking at Casperis. Easy dump off to your big man right there who did a nice little floater. Khil has a similar shots. Uh you see the excellent bounce pass here off the roll. And then another one of those crafty passes where he just wraps it around the defender’s back. This is hard. This is very very difficult to do. And yeah, sets it up on a silver platter for his big man. And then finally, Brady’s going to highlight a lot of the defensive plays of Casperis. That’s something else a lot of the doubters point out, but they try to act like he’s a turn style. He’s not. He’s not Duncan Robinson. He’s not Tyler. He’s better than that. He’s able to use his 66 frame with the 68 wingspan uh and decent, you know, just overall size to him along with pure hustle and effort. He’s able to use both of those things to be a pretty decent defender or at least I think he has the capability of being a decent defender in the NBA because these clips say it all, right? We we’ll rewind to the first one here where already he’s doing a great job closing out on both of these shooters up top. This is pure hustle. First, he’s going to run out to number two at the top of the key. Then once the ball gets swung, he’s going to run out to the shooter on the the left wing here. Of course, because he’s closing out hard, the defender is going to beat him off the dribble. But Casper doesn’t give up. See how Casper is behind him. A lot of guys who aren’t known for defense would give up here. They might start cherrypicking back on offense, but not him. He recovers and he’s actually able to block this shot from behind. That’s pure hustle. Same thing with this next play where he doesn’t die on the screen. Not once, not twice. He keeps fighting over the screen and blocks the shot again. Kind of reminds me of something DaVon Mitchell would do. Again, a lot of guys might die on the screen. Oh, they don’t have the effort to get over. They’ll concede the switch. But he fights over this screen. Fights over this screen here. He’s beat because he was just screened, but still has the length and hustle to recover. I mean, look where the offensive player starts raising his shot. Casper is still basically at the three-point line, but he’s able to recover and block the shot from behind. That that is impressive, too. That really is. Then this next play here, the defender is going to try to body him up here. Casper is too big. He just takes that bump right here inside the free throw line, and then he’s able to block the shot because, yeah, you’re not bodying Casper Yakonis. That boy is built different. But yeah, that was the last tweet of this thread. Uh, I just kind of wanted to look at a few of these plays before summer league so we can get a better idea of how uh, versatile a player he actually is. I think that’s being very understated. But let me know y’all thoughts down in the comments below. I’m very curious to hear what y’all think. Make sure to like the video and subscribe because your support is greatly appreciated. And I’ll see y’all on the next video. Peace out, everyone. Do it on my own. I don’t need no dead. Yeah, I need a head space. You know this homegrown don’t a fan.

Film analysis of Miami Heat rookie Kasparas Jakucionis from his college season at Illinois and discussing what he brings to the Miami Heat. Reaction to new Brady Hawk thread. NBA and Miami Heat News featuring Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Andrew Wiggins, Kel’el Ware, Kasparas Jakucionis, Terry Rozier, Nikola Jovic, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Duncan Robinson, Kevin Love, Haywood Highsmith, Pelle Larsson, Keshad Johnson, Erik Spoelstra and more. Subscribe for more Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, NBA and NFL news.

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