Kasparas Jakučionis Is Confident He’ll Bounce Back And Play Better Rest Of Miami Heat Summer League

Kasparas Jakučionis Is Confident He’ll Bounce Back And Play Better Rest Of Miami Heat Summer League

Welcome on in guys. Tobin here with you and thanks for checking out the channel. Hope you’re doing well. It is a Friday morning. We’re heading on into the weekend with Heat Summer League getting going again this afternoon. This is the true summer league. Vegas summer league. The boys are back to defend their crown as they were the reigning champs. And you do have a lot of pieces that are a part of this team. Pella Larson, Kesha Johnson, Kell Wear, uh JC Butler, uh Bryson Warren. So you do have other guys who have been part of this Heat team that are coming back to defend the crown. And of course you have some new guys Vlad Golden, Casper Yakonis, who of course I think is looking forward to a little bit of redemption after a tough start to the summer. And uh that’s going to be the main focus of what we talk about here today on what we want to uh see from him. But I did see Jamari Buh Jamari Buouay had a game winner. And then of course we had Cooper Flag and Bronnie James’ showdown yesterday where uh Cooper Flag he uh did not have the greatest day from the field, but of course it is uh just getting used getting your feet wet. Probably hasn’t played ball in an actual game in a while. Um a couple of things. First of all, uh, in regards to the Miami Heat first round pick, Casper Yakonis, uh, if you guys haven’t seen the All Access, and I’ve been just singing the praises of the Miami Heat’s content, uh, of the stuff they’ve been putting out, uh, really has been topnotch. I mean, they’ve done such a great job, such a jump from from where they’ve been, from the stuff that they’ve been putting online. Uh, love it. and they turned around with a draft all X’s. Usually you got to wait like a year for that stuff until we get to like inside the Heat Casper versus Yakonis. But, you know, the quick turnarounds, uh, 8 minutes, 9 minutes, who doesn’t have that to go see behind the scenes of of the Miami Heat draft. You know, you can get back and you can do the in-depth stuff, and that’s all cool. There’s not like there’s not a place for that. But in today’s day and age, you know, people are are hyped up about it. You want to see that turnaround. I just thought that they did a a marvelous job with uh with that content. So, I highly recommend it. Go check it out on their YouTube page if you haven’t already. Uh it’s it’s really really uh it’s really enjoyable. I loved uh you love you get a chance to see the war room. You get a chance to see the behind thescenes calls and then you get to see just you could see Yakonis like it. This is a kid and you could see this like was whoa. this this NBA moment hitting him especially when he gets to the Heat facility and he’s meeting Pat Riley and Spo’s giving him the tour and Spose look at this like and one of the things Spo like woo guard with some size I like it so that was kind of cool um and then the idea you know he explains he was going to go with either one or two numbers I don’t want to spoil the whole thing but he’s uh you know watch it anyway so he’s like was going to either pick 21 or 25. Ends up going with 25 for his sister because it’s his sister’s birthday. He normally goes with seven or 32. Kell has seven and of course 32 retired Shaquille O’Neal. So, um I recommend checking it out. It was it was uh it was really really well done. And speaking of well done, um before I get into these quotes, uh shout out to the boys over at Five Reasons. Thanks for having me on the pod this week. go check out their uh their podcast feed. You guys can go check it out. We did about, you know, probably like a 45 minutes on on all things Miami Heat, something South Florida sports, myself, Ethan, and Brady Hawk. So, go check that out. And uh I also did a podcast this week with the boys from the basement and uh go check them out. We did do that pod before a day before the Norman Pal. We did it on Sunday night. So, we did it a day before the Norman Pal trade. But I do think there’s still also a lot of things that uh that still hold. I don’t think you know the the the knowing pal thing is the great elixir of everything. But it does help. It certainly does help. And another thing that would help would be seeing an encouraging outing from the Miami Heat’s first round pick. And I was reading some of the quotes uh today with an article on Anthony Chang. Uh talked about uh I guess got a chance to talk to the rookie and some of the reporters did. Um, and he talked about just the struggles of the first few games. And he said, quote, “I think I just need to settle in more, play at my own pace, don’t get sped up as much as I was these three games.” He uh said, “I didn’t feel myself in those games, but I think that’s normal. It’s a process, so I’m just going to go out there. Uh, it’s a process. So, I’m just happy to be here. I’m happy to be able to learn from these coaches and from the other guys by working out, watching film, and understanding the game. He certainly like I think it was very noticeable. Like there were just games where I think there were pockets where he looked like he was playing at his own pace, but it looked like that was easily disruptable to to to make him a little bit more frantic. So, I think that that is what I am looking forward to is is seeing a guy even as the games go on, right? Cuz I think they’re going to continue to start him and I think that he is going to continue to get these opportunities. I think they have the schedule goes like this. You got Friday today at uh 4:30. We’ll recap that. Sunday at 7:30, then they got a Monday game at 8:00. and then uh Thursday uh Thursday afternoon and I would imagine that the Monday game I would imagine you know they’ll they’re going to probably divide that up. I would imagine like where is it going to keep playing in all of this I I would say if I had to guess like they are getting him a lot of reps and and are giving him chances but I would imagine he’s not going to play the whole summer. I would think that there’s going to come a time where they feel like they’ve seen enough. I think they probably made what they want from him known. And Vegas, there’s a little bit more spotlight. I think everybody kind of gets out there. The whole franchise is out there. So, I would imagine that uh you know, maybe a couple more outings. Maybe he plays half the schedule. I don’t think he’s going to play all of it. Um and maybe that goes for Pella and Keshad, too. But for uh and we we we saw like the little bit of the divide with the the schedule in California, even though uh you know there’s more competition. It’s more diverse here. You get to take on more teams. So, we’ll see. But, uh, but Yaka Jones certly, you need to see him just seem like he’s not sped up. You know, he’s had the games with the turn. Everything’s kind of been an issue, right? Like, it’s been the games that have been I mean, it’s been all three games were tough shooting. He has shown ability to get to the free throw line. He’s shown we’ve seen some levels of the good passes. You know, we’ve seen like we’ve seen flashes of it. Um, but we h and we’ve seen him compete defensively and we’ve seen him hustle. We haven’t seen him look physically overwhelmed, but we’ve also seen him foul at times. We’ve seen him not be able to hit a three ball. We have seen him um, you know, we have seen the turnover problem. So, all of those things have been shown. People do need to remember it’s 19 years old. I think that, you know, people who are rats off a ship completely, that’s crazy. Has it reset maybe people’s expectations of when he’ll be ready ready? Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. But also, they also made the Norman Pal trade this week, so it’s also like, you know, maybe they’re not as desperate for him to play right away either. Um, so that’ll be an interesting thing. He also said to reporters, he says, “I think I’m just not in a rhythm. I’m trying to get back into rhythm. Um, after all the process that I had, I’m trying to get back to myself, trying to execute as hard as I can when I go on the court. Just give 100%. Even if I don’t do the best on offense, I try to give 100% on defense and help the team win. Definitely think that he’s played his ass off. I don’t think that that’s been an issue at all. Um, I think that, you know, and I think that’s been noticeable like even the games where he’s like he was diving all over the floor. He’s been trying to get extra possessions. You see that? Like I do I think that element of of efforts never I don’t I don’t think you can question that at all from from from Casperis. I think that that’s definitely been there. And he said I’m not too worried about my shooting. I know that I can shoot. It’s just a matter of time. Just trying to get to work on it. Just trying to get to do what the coach says and execute as hard as I can. And yeah, I think there was another thing that was cool that the Heat uh put out on they put a a mic up with Casperus and yeah, just kind of explaining like where to play at his own pace, Coach Glass getting him to to look for his guys and collear. So, I’m excited. I I definitely want to I I I I think it’d be nice to see one of these games just kind of click. I think when that first three ball goes down or even maybe a couple at the rim just I think you’re just going to see a weight lifted off of him in a in a massive massive way and it won’t be like he’s pressing so much. So that’s that’s definitely numero uno for the summer league. Kell like look we all know we we talked about that last game that he had where he he didn’t feel like you know he felt like he was playing with his food a little bit and I think that he would really like I think if if Keller went out there today and Kell had 15 rebounds and four blocks you know something like that and even it doesn’t even matter what the points are but if Kell had a performance like that I don’t think you’ll see him the rest of summer league I don’t I I feel like I think that he just want to see like one of those like Hey, go out here, look like Vegas Will Chamberlain, and we’ll call it a summer. I honestly think that that would be the case. It and it would just be like, hey, let’s go out here just completely like go pedal to the metal on this game and he might be done for the summer. Pella, I think, is clearly shown himself and and both the Arizona guys, Pella and Kesha, but Pella’s got the ball in his hands more. Pella has shown himself to be absolutely the best player on the team so far. And uh I thought that Keshad really shut a lot of people up with his performance the last game too because he showed his ability to do a little bit of everything. And you know even coach Glass was talking about this to reporters like you know he hasn’t gotten the ball very much. Like we’re not looking for Keshad to to do a lot you know to he’s not in the same spot that Pella is in because he’s not going to be in that spot on this team. Like he’s going to come in here. He’s going to be asked to wreak havoc. He’s going to be asked to to be dirty work and then get rebounds, go run tomahawk slam some stuff, show his improvement with the three ball. Um, but I I I I thought it was nice. It’s just like that. Like I think just have a run like that, even Casper, if he has a run like that, I think is just going to ease a lot of the uh the pressure off of him. So looking forward to it. Vegas Summer League is when the real summer league gets going. And let’s see if the He can defend this title.

Tobin discusses Kasparas Jakučionis comments about his struggles so far in Summer League and why the rookie first round pick remains confident he’ll get back to playing more like himself in Las Vegas.
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