This 1st Round Pick Can’t Solve Summer League…

This 1st Round Pick Can’t Solve Summer League…

It’s just summer league. Everybody say it Whippy one more time. It’s just summer league. Having said that, there is a first round pick that is having one of the worst summer league debuts we’ve honestly ever seen. Casper Yakonis, the 20th overall pick in the draft for the Miami Heat, has been a complete disaster. Now, granted, it’s only a couple of games and we’re not even to Vegas yet. This is like the pre-summer league, but there are a lot of concerns already coming up when you compare Yakonis to who he was as a prospect, what we expected to be in the NBA, and then how he has looked in summer league. First, let’s talk about him as a prospect. In terms of pros, he was going to be this big guard that can create. He can get to the rim and he’s a streaky shooter, but kind of projects to something like a bigger version of Austin Reeves, a guy that’s crafty, that’s going to be able to create things off of screens, be a playmaker, not someone that you’re going to give the ball to every single time down the floor, but is going to be kind of this old school like combo guard type of archetype where he’s going to play on and off the ball because he can shoot off the ball and on the ball he can create for you not as your primary guy, but as one of the guys that’s going to be creating and can function within an offense because of his decision. decision making and his playmaking, his passing, his shooting, and his scoring. Certainly not an elite athlete, but has a skill set and more importantly the size at 66 200 lb to be able to get to the line and really be a nice cog of an offense, even if he’s not the primary guy, which is one of the reasons that he slipped to 20. And people pretty universally thought that this was a steal for Miami to get him at the 20th pick. There were conversations about him going in the lottery, maybe even in the top 12. he falls to 20 and we’re starting to see some of the reasons why. In terms of negatives for him as a prospect, athleticism was a big concern. 66 200 lb is awesome, but in terms of foot speed, in terms of just overall athleticism, there were a lot of concerns. There’s a bunch of guys in the league that are not overly athletic that have turned into really good players and really good scorers. But for Yakonis’ prospect profile, definitely the biggest negative and biggest concern was going to be his athleticism and his ability to create without a screen. Could he get by anybody? Could he create any kind of advantage without an onball screen? That was a concern. The other big concern was turnovers. There were a bunch of games for him in college where he had more turnovers than he had made shots. And part of that was because Illinois was relying on him a lot in college to create and to be the primary guy offensively. And that just leads to a lot of turnovers when you’re a young guy and you’re trying to figure it out. But the athleticism and the turnovers could at times be connected in college and so far in summer league. All of the things you’ve been concerned about with Yakonis have absolutely come true. The numbers so far, again, this is just through the first couple of summer league games in like the California Classic before we even get to Vegas, they’ve been completely terrible. So many turnovers, can’t make a shot from the field. And there’s just a lot of negative momentum right now towards a guy that was picked in the first round like two weeks ago. And the two things that concern me the most watching him in summer league, it’s not a complete disaster, but it’s pretty close. The two things that concern me the most are one, he can’t get by anybody. He cannot create an advantage on his own. and two, the turnovers. In terms of creating an offensive advantage, summer league at times can be not a great representation of what that looks like for a player’s pro career. We’ve seen plenty of guys that have ended up being really, really good NBA players like Jaylen Brunson. Trey Young had some really bad summer league games. Summer league is very physical. There are some unbelievable athletes, especially in the back court. Guys that are 6’1, 6’2, crazy athletic, but just don’t have the skill set to play an actual NBA game, but they keep coming back to summer league. and you’re allowed like 10 fouls in summer league. So guys are getting aggressive. They’re pressing full court. They really want to be up in your space because they don’t really care if they commit a foul and they’re not really worried about getting into the bonus or anything early on in a quarter in summer league. They are as aggressive as you could possibly expect an NBA defense to be. And Yakonis has struggled with all of that. If he gets a screen, there are some moments and there are some flashes of some good passing vision. If you’re looking at his overall numbers, it also doesn’t help that the Heat just can’t really hit any shots off the ball. That’s another issue with summer league as well is the players aren’t as good on the other team, but also on your team. So, there’s not as good of spacing. There’s not guys that are actually hitting shots, so your assist numbers don’t look good. So, the assist turnovers can look really bad. Guys aren’t rolling to the rim as well. So, you’re not getting the kind of space that you typically would with rim rolling bigs and you don’t have the outlet passes of someone that’s like a pick and pop big. There’s a lot of stuff happening in summer league that is not necessarily going to make Yakonis’ life easier. But if you’re looking at what he’s looked like in summer league compared to some of the concerns you had for him as a prospect, a lot of those things are lining up in terms of the lack of athleticism. And it’s not just the inability to create and and create an advantage and get in the paint. It’s also finishing at the rim. There’s a lot of like I’m really trying to scoop around this guy because I can’t fully get around him and I’m just going to throw something up at the rim. There’s a lot of man I really hope I get fouled on this drive because I know there’s no chance I’m making this layup. There’s a lot of stuff that you’re concerned about. A lack of a left hand in terms of finishing at the rim. A lot of things that are just all connected to a guy that feels outmatched physically and athletically, which is of course connected to the turnovers. There’s a lot of plays here to me that I actually think you can just kind of ride off as a guy that is having his confidence lowered by playing in summer league and someone that is just overwhelmed by how poorly he’s playing. it. It’s more of a mental thing where he’s getting a screen and attacking and then just giving the ball up way too early because his confidence is super low in terms of hitting his jumper, in terms of finishing at the rim, and so he’s only looking to pass and he’s just making bad decisions off of that. Again, connected to the lack of athleticism. And I think you can definitely ride off a bunch of the turnovers as a guy that’s just playing with basically zero confidence. But some of the other turnovers are also things that we saw from him in college where the decision-m can just be suspect and he tries to fit things in that aren’t there. And again, the lack of athleticism limits the space that he creates and thus limits the easy opportunities that he has for passing lanes. Gets a little bit flustered with the increased athleticism around them. And all of a sudden, he’s not only turning the ball over, but he’s giving up points on the other end, too. Cuz these are like pick six kind of turnovers. Now, if you’re a Heat fan and you’re watching this and you’re hoping that I’m going to say something positive at some point to make you feel better. Really, the only thing you can say when a guy has played this poorly is that it is just summer league, which is exactly what we said in the beginning of the video. You can go back and look through a bunch of guys throughout the history of the league that have not played well in summer league that have ended up as really, really productive NBA players. And summer league is just not built for everyone. And Yakonis appears to be a guy that is just not built for it and is going to have plenty of time to develop. He’s still young. It’s not like he’s going to have to play right away for this Heat team. They’ve got Norm Powell, they’ve got Tyler Herro, they’ve got a bunch of guys that can create and he can kind of be in more of an onoff ball role like I think he should be rather than needing to have the ball a ton, which they’re doing to help him develop, but still it’s something that doesn’t necessarily need to happen for him at the NBA level to develop. And I think ultimately the consensus should be he will probably be fine. It’s not the start that you wanted him to have, but I think more so than anything else, they need to build up his confidence. He needs to have a couple of good games in Vegas and the shooting has to turn around because for his prospect profile, we’re thinking, okay, the shooting would be nice, right? Like him being streaky isn’t necessarily a huge negative because again going back to that Austin Reeves comp, like Austin Reeves sometimes has games where he shoots really well from three and other times he doesn’t, but he’s crafty enough at getting to the rim, gets to the line enough, playmakes well enough off screens that he doesn’t have to make jump shots to be effective. But if Yakonis is going to be this bad with his decision-m and this lacking athletically, the shooting suddenly goes from like, “Oh, that would be a nice luxury to have to,” oh my gosh, this is an absolute necessity for this guy to create anything at all. So, yes, it’s just Summer League, but this is, like I said in the beginning, pretty much as bad as it gets from a statistical perspective, in terms of actually watching the games and seeing what this guy is doing. The fact that I’m actually showing you low lightss instead of highlights tells you everything you need to know about a guy that that really not that long ago was a top 20 pick in the draft. And we certainly will be keeping an eye on him in Vegas to see if he can turn some things around in the beginning of the year for

Kasparas Jakucionis has been a disaster as a 1st round pick for the Miami Heat in NBA Summer League so far…

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