Miami Heat: Grading Jakučionis & other Summer League Thoughts | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat: Grading Jakučionis & other Summer League Thoughts | Five on the Floor

[Music] Mercy luxurious heat nation. Yeah. Mercy logo down the Five on the floor. Ride for my dogs. Where’s the thing? You can check the score. Hustle hard. Couple stars wearing bubble frog [Music] plan got all y’all seen the block stop one hand and pap it up. Welcome to five on the floor a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sander, Alex Toledo, Brady Hawk, and others from the Five Reason Sports Network. Also, make sure to subscribe to Off the Floor for the most heat anywhere. Welcome back to Five on the Floor. I’m your host, Greg Sander. Today’s floor plan with me, Digital Adele. We are going to do one last sweep of Las Vegas uh of the summer league that took place. Um there’s still I guess uh technically a championship game to be played uh as we’re recording this. So it’s still um still going, but the Miami Heat’s work is done. Uh we are going to grade their first round pick Casper Yakonis and just kind of talk through his summer league because I think that was probably the thing that Heat fans were looking forward to most about summer league is getting their eyes on the first round pick. So we shall do that. Before we do, want to shout out Off the Floor. That’s our Discord server. $299 a month, $3.99 on your Apple device. This is where you’re going to get the most heat anywhere. We have 10 over 10 channels at this point. We’re doing stage shows, all of the free agency talk, draft talk, uh, as the season approaches. If you want to argue about rotations and coaching mistakes as games start, this is the place to do it all. $299 a month off the floor, the most heat anywhere. Also want to shout out a great sponsor of Five on the Floor and the Five Reason Sports Network. That is Prize Picks. It’s daily fantasy simplified. Use the code five fiv. That’s going to get you $50 instantly when you play your first $5. Prize picks is easy. You choose your favorite players, choose your favorite statistics. Choose more or less on those stat and you can win uh up to 10 times your money. You can do flex plays, power plays, prize.com or the app. It’s a lot of fun to play. Use the code five fi. That’ll get your um first play of $5 will get you $50 instantly with that code five. So use that prize.com daily fantasy simplified. All right, Adele. Um so you uh got the opportunity to go out to Vegas. I have yet to do the Vegas summer league uh experience. Everybody who goes gushes about the experience, says how fun it is. And so eventually, hopefully one of these years, I will get the chance to go. Um, so you got to see some of this live. I watched all the games uh from the comfort of my own home. Um, this was an interesting year for summer league for the Heat because there was um I felt like there wasn’t as much uh excitement and focus on summer league as maybe some past years when in reality there was probably more potential rotation players on this summer league team than some of the summer league teams that have came uh in years past. like you’ve got plenty of guys on this team that had standard contracts that have standard contracts and you could get a chance to see them play throughout the year. So, I thought it was actually a pretty informative summer league in terms of seeing where guys were. Obviously, there was the stuff about Kel Wear and responding to Spolstra. Pelle Lson had an uptick in production. Kind of looks like he’s ready to take on a bigger role. Uh, but like I said, we’re going to focus on Casper Yakonis today. And I really want to get into grading um verse expectations, but also verse reality and what we’ve seen from him. Um, let’s start on offense. Adele, uh, I have to be honest to start summer league, I was underwhelmed with with Casper Yakonis. And I guess I’ll say this is the reason why. When I saw Tyler at summer league the first time or when I saw Haimey the first time at summer league, there was just like a little bit of like a oh, okay, he’s different than everyone else on the court. And I didn’t quite get that vibe at first from Yakonis. There were a few passes here and there and I felt like maybe he didn’t get the benefit of being on the ball as much as he maybe needs to be to to show those flashes. So, I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Um he finishes summer league with with really good stats which we’re going to get into here in a minute. But your thoughts on um kind of fan expectations of Yakonis, your expectations going into summer league uh and what we saw from him offensively specifically uh up in Vegas and and California. I let’s lump it all together. Yeah, no doubt. I mean the fact to to address one of the other things you said there’s three rotation players on the roster. Pella Larson, Kashad Johnson, Casper Shakon is the first round pick and they’re looking for a backup big. Like they still need a backup big. So there’s a lot of interesting dynamics on the summer league. Now not all of it is great cuz the fit isn’t great as a team. So a lot of the ancillary pieces weren’t as good as the previous summer league team. And that’s why I think some of the fans are a little bit underwhelmed by Casper Yakonis’ performances because the organization when you look at these things and I I’m not speaking on behalf of the Miami Heat, but any organization when you’re putting to together a summer league roster, you have guys that you know what you have. So you’re trying to see certain things from them like what kind of growth in this area for for Pella Larson example. What kind of on ball uh role can he have in the upcoming season? Self-creation for Casper Shakonis. They’re like, “Oh, on tape, we see he’s a highlevel pick and roll facilitator. What else can he do? Can he play offball? Could you slide him next to Tyler at some points in the season? Could he play next to Norm Pal or whatever?” So, they’re not always looking to maximize the production out of these guys in summer league. were trying to look at certain things and I think in the California Classic they were trying to do that. They were like, “Okay, Casp, we’ll give you a little bit of on ball, but I want to see what you can do off ball. I want to see what Kyra Lewis can do facilitation-wise. I want to see, you know, they want to see a bunch of different things.” So, I think that really affected his numbers. And coming out, he was number top eight. He was number eight on my big board. So, he’s a top 10 talent. So, the fact that the Miami Heat got him at 20, I’m thrilled with what they got. As far as what I’ve seen, I we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of the numbers, but I’ve I’ve been very impressed overall what I’ve seen in the California Classic specifically. You could see the on the defense is way better than the fans expected. Now, you see it on tape in Illinois. I saw it on tape at Illinois, but you see it translate in an NBA setting. the wingspan, the competitiveness, the strength because he’s got an NBA body already. And then the facilitation stuff. I broke down the tape. I would torture myself and go back and watch those really rough games. And you would see there’s like five or six assists that were just left on the desk by his teammates all the time. And there was a bunch of hockey assist. The ball doesn’t stop. He would just move the ball, get the offense swinging. So, there was a lot of stuff I really liked from Casper Yakonis. Yeah, there’s a a couple things, I guess. Um, I thought that uh he’s going to probably be a guy who’s going to look better when he has better players around him. Um, I I didn’t want to make too much of um necessarily like his ability to to score buckets and stuff like that. Like that. That’s not what I was looking for. What I was looking for was that vision um and kind of uh being able to make reads and and passes that you don’t see every day. And I I guess my expectations was they were going to give the ball to him and let him kind of run with it. But to your point, they’re evaluating so many different things that I think it’s it was probably unrealistic of me to think that they were just going to like let him run and gun his way through summer league. like they’re they’re trying to evaluate not only all the standard contracts you mentioned, but some of the the other holes they have to fill and so they can’t just let the let this guy kind of run wild to some degree. And he plays within the confines of of the offense. I know when I spoke and we’re going to talk about his defense after the break, but um when I spoke to people around the Heat, they were particularly they came away from summer league uh happy with his uh offball defense, just defense in general. I think was a takeaway for him and that was not a calling card of his I think necessarily coming in. Uh you correct me if I’m wrong, but I so so that was a an interesting part of of his game. Offensively though, I I guess I’ll say this. Do you think that there’s a chance that he because I’m looking at the rotation and I’m thinking that Tyler and Norm, despite neither of them being a pure, for lack of a better term, point guard. Um, I think that’s going to be the starting back court. And then you have DaVon off the bench and I start to wonder where they’re going to find minutes for Yakonis offensively. Um, do you This is probably going to be a year like to your point about like putting him in situations in summer league. He’s gonna probably have to be off ball this year in his first season in the league, right? So, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that they tried to get some looks with him off ball, right? And I mean, it could be it’s very fluid. As we saw last year, the lineup combinations were a plenty. Spo was mixing and matching like a mad scientist until he found what worked. And I think you’re going to have a lot of that this season as well. You’re going to find what works. So how these players play well, maybe it will be Norm Pal and Tyler to start the season. If Wiggins is still here, Wiggins and then how that synergy, how that chemistry works, you could keep it if it works. If it doesn’t, then they start experimenting, right? and you start bringing DaVon in the starting lineup. Maybe Yakonis runs some backup point minutes or if Drew Drew gets healthy coming back from that Achilles. It’s a good point. But Yakonis, I think they’re going to find ways he’s too good of a basketball player to not find a way to utilize that skill set because I know we’re trying to save the numbers for a different part of the show, but for as bad as we’re saying he played offensively, he still averaged 15 points a game. Yeah. No, let’s get to the numbers. Let’s get to them. Because he played three games in Vegas specifically, 27 minutes a game. You referenced 15 points a game. That was more than I expected. Like, it didn’t feel like 15 a game, which is funny. Um, he I just lost my uh he shot Hold on, I’m getting it here. He shot what 44% from the field if I’m looking at this. 44.8. Yep. So 45% and 35% from three basically four and four as it relates to rebound. Oh no wait that’s free throws. Um he what it was three and three or something like that that he averaged talking about just raw numbers. Yeah three rebounds three assist but the big number there you said it didn’t feel like 15 points per game but he’s averaging in only 27 minutes four free throws a game. Yeah, that’s a good point. When he gets to the free throw line, when he gets down there, he uses that wide frame in his wingspan, he’ll put that body on you and then get the ball up on the backboard. Like, he may not be an explosive vertical athlete, but he knows how to finish around the rim. Showed up in college, shows up in summer league on ball, he’s going to be better. This is this is the thing. So when you when they put him on ball, they you saw that explosive game he had over 20 plus points, the rebounds, the assist. When they pumped his usage up, he delivered. They’re like, “Okay, we knew he could do that in college. We checked that box. Let’s go see what the rest of these guys can do on ball.” Like Myron Gardner should he really shouldn’t have been on ball above Casper Shakonis. Eric Stevenson shouldn’t have been on ball over Yakonis. Tyra Lewis, Cook. I like those guys for what they can do. But should they have been that high of usage? No. But that’s because they’re not trying to pull out all the stops to win the summer league. You’re right. Yeah. It’s not a situation where they’re trying to build a team to necessarily win games. It’s funny listening to guys in interviews at summer league. I’ve watched a lot of summer league in the last week and they all like the the default answer when you’re interviewed like in between quarters is like you’re trying to win and stuff like that. But it’s funny because I in summer league you can tell that these guys know that that’s not always necessarily the end goal that there’s so much evaluation going on that sometimes even though like in a team like like Miami for instance where everyone thinks of them as always trying to win. Yeah, they’re playing hard all the time, but it’s not necessarily that they’re putting out the lineups that they think would win the game or putting the play the ball in the players hands that would necessarily result in an absolute victory because they’re trying to evaluate things. But to your point, um I was surprised when I looked at at Yakonis’ overall numbers, 153 and three on reasonable percentages. Um he didn’t get lost on defense. he um plays like you you said this to me via text the other day and I thought it was a really articulate point like he knows where to be. He’s never like in the wrong spot. And I thought that that was an important observation because usually like a a thing that will get you on Spolster’s naughty list quickly is if you can’t if you can’t stay where you’re at least supposed to be uh in a defensive scheme. So off ball, I thought that that that was interesting to watch him uh defend. And he he also offensively to your point, he didn’t avoid contact. Like there’s no um he doesn’t play soft and I think that that’s good for for this team. Um before we get to the final grade on Yakonis and also want to just go through some quick summer league notes, I do want to shout out Lynette. She is from Aggressive Insurance. She can help you in Miami or Florida. If you have a uh any issues with your driving record, uh if you need insurance, all types of insurance, um you can reach out to Lynette 954-5818800. That’s aggressive insurance. Insurancebylanette.com. It’s the insurance agency that works for you. She’s also a huge Heat fan. Um, she’ll probably uh be watching our uh postgame shows throughout the season, so you can chat with her there. Um, or just give her a shout out uh on social media uh aggressive insurance 954-581-8800 or try insurancebylanette.com. Shout out to you Lynette for always supporting the channel and the show. Um, so this was floating around social media like what do you grade Yakonis and most people are landing around a B minus and I feel like that’s fair. Um, I probably would say I want to see more. Um, and and I think that like until we see him next to real basketball talent, real NBA talent, I should say, I kind of want to withhold um some of the grading curve that I that I may implement with a guy like Yakatonis because his game is so unique. But I’m going I think that that’s like safe B minus, right? What do you do you feel like he should get propped up a little higher than that? Where where do you come down on grading Yakonis in his summer league? I just did a podcast with air a couple of days ago and that’s what I settled on also. A B minus. Uh the turnovers are the big thing and it’s one of those things with a young point guard that’s going to happen, but you have to also tally that into your evaluation because you got to clean those things up. the defensive stuff ranked really high for me because especially on the the team that he’s on the Miami Heat, the defensive stuff is what’ll get you on the floor and being in the right spots. And speaking to your earlier point when we were talking about how he’s always in the right spot, but it’s not just on defense. He reads floor spacing really well offensively as well. And that’s another thing that contributed to some of his woes. he’d go to make the right play by taking space to create angles and like Gardner for example would just stand there and and they’d run into each other and now the spacing’s bad. Now the whole offense looks bad. And so he’s one of those guys when you say he’ll look better with higher level players. It’s not just because of what he can do on ball or what the other players can do. They all understand spacing better than some of the summer league guys. Eric Stevenson’s another guy who’ll run right into other players space. So, Yaka Jonas, man, a B minus is right on target. I really loved what I saw from him in summer league. Yeah, I think that that’s a fair grade. I think that um to your point, too. like e even though all all these different guys you mentioned Gardner um Javvante Cook had they all had moments but to your point um I wouldn’t say that this was a group that was put together like the chemistry that they exuded when they won summer league last year. I don’t know how that all translated and came together so um uh seamlessly, but this group didn’t have that same chemistry. The pieces didn’t fit necessarily and you saw that. Um I’m with you. I think like a solid B is probably where I’m at with Yakonis. I was hoping that we could hope traffic him into uh the A range, but we’re not there yet. We’ll get there though by the time preseason rolls around. Um final thoughts on summer league. We’re going to kind of put summer league to bed here. We’re getting into the doldrums of the summer for the NBA season. Uh, I did want to shout out Myron Gardner, who you mentioned, and Javvante Cook, who Brady Hawk has loved throughout I won’t say loved, he’s liked his game throughout summer league. Um, I I have uh heard that both of those guys are in strong consideration for uh training camp invites, so you could see those guys battling. They can bring, I think, up to 21 players to camp. They’ve got 14 under contract. Um, so, you know, you do the math. they’ve got guys that they can add and bring in. Uh so those would be I guess two names from my perspective that we’ll continue to watch because they may have the ability to uh get another chance to prove more of themselves to the Heat. Um anyone else that we’re leaving out? But I know when I when I added that nugget on Discord, people were asking about danger if he would get a chance because the Heat do have obviously it appears as if they could use some um players in the front court. Uh Vlad Golden is on the two-way contract. I think they had to give that to him to convince him to take their deal versus someone else’s. I don’t know that he is. And now I’m veering off in another another direction. Hopefully I don’t take us on a 30-minute detour. What do you think of Vlad Golden? Like are what what’s I don’t know that he is a backup big in today’s NBA and maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but like as I look at some of the other guys that have came through um just the slow feet really really give me pause. What What are your thoughts on his game? Yeah, Vlad Golden is a slow fittedfooted traditional big. It’s the same as what we thought when he came out in the draft. And I thought he would get drafted. I thought he was a draftable big. Um, but the way the draft fell, he just ended up on a, you know, on the undrafted list. The thing with Golden is he has limited vertical athleticism. He has limited foot speed. He plays extremely hard, though. That’s the one thing you really love about Vlad Golden. He’ll run the floor hard. He goes at it hard. But when when he’s challenging shots, he he’s not a shot blocker. um not at the NBA level. Maybe at the college level, but not at the NBA level. He’s going to have to learn to be a positional defender, take charges, that sort of thing. Slow feet don’t help that in the NBA. The game moves so fast that if you have slow feet, you’re going to end up just getting blocking fouls. So, correct, that’s tough. And then the rebounding stuff. I mean, his lack of vertical athleticism on rebounding, he’s gonna have to be older Kevin Love style positional rebounder, like uses bulk and timing, timing, all the tricks just to rebound because he’s not that good of a vertical athlete. It’s a very similar problem Janai Broom’s going to have um for you know he was highly decorated in college but you’re seeing guys like Rice Sensible out jump him for rebounds like this is a shooting guard and it’s because he just has no vertical athleticism and so it’s going to be one of those things that it’s going to be very difficult for him. I get why they gave him the two-way. They need a backup big. He’s a big body. Maybe he turns into something, maybe he doesn’t. It’s only a two-way spot. As far as Dane Danger, I don’t see anybody giving him a two-way, but there’s potential there. So, he could end up in Sou Falls. Yeah, I think that’s a good point. He’s another guy that I haven’t heard that they would invite to training camp, but I could connect the dots to see it making sense to giving him some running camp, giving him a look there, particularly with two-way spots open or if you want to swap out Golden for another a two-way player elsewhere, something like that. I think it’s worth talking about. Um, is there anyone from the back court? I I’m kind of not intrigued by the Kyro Lewis experiment. I’m over that. Um, I in the league like six years, right? I um yeah, some of his on ball possessions were annoying me throughout the the summer league, I do have to admit. Um but that’s we should look out for. I know that um Javvante Cook is is a guy that Brady thinks has a shot at a two-way spot. Um I I’m not as sure as he um has been so far about his game. Um, but I knew I know that they’re going to continue to take a look at these guys. Anyone else we should think about before we close the book on Vegas. No, I think they’re two their last two ways on another roster. I really do. Um, I like Javante Cook. He’s a nice he seems like a great kid. He’s got good arm length. Uh, he’s pretty he’s decently quick. He can do a little bit of everything, but not anything that jumps at you at an NBA level. Um, and that’s the thing with Javvante. He just doesn’t do anything elite enough at an NBA level. Now, maybe he could develop, maybe he gets to Sou Falls, maybe he’s in the pipeline for a couple of years, but these guys that have been around like Kira Lewis, the reason why he was on ball so much, they wanted to see if he could facilitate, could he run an NBA offense, they knew he could score, and I just don’t and I just didn’t see enough facilitation chops for him to to make it. Um, Eric Stevenson, they’re looking for probably more movement, shooting, and shooting ability. He has that, but he’s an ultimate ball stopper. The ball just sticks, doesn’t move, and you’re not going to be able to make the team doing that. And so, ultimately, they’re two-way lies elsewhere in my opinion. Yeah. And so, that’ll be interesting to see if they uncover either a guy who gets waved. I mean, I saw a former first round pick, Blake Wesley, get waved um just the other day. Not that the Heat are going to look into him, but I think it’s an example that you never know when guys get waved as casualties to transactions or just roster spots or uh teams want to go in a different direction. And I think to your point, kind of keeping that last two-way as a flexible spot to see who may uh become available and add is probably the prudent approach for the remainder of the summer. So, we’ll see what happens. Uh but yeah, we’re we’re gonna grade Casper Yakonis in his summer league. Uh including Cali because you know what, for him to shoot as bad as he did and come back and have some of the games he did in Vegas, I think shows a resilience factor that’s important also. So B for Yakonis. Uh that puts a bow on summer league. Adele, thank you for joining us. Uh shout out to our sponsors. We’ll have you covered the rest of the week with uh more heat topics than than you can think of. Trust me, Ethan and I are brainstorming on as many topics as will get us through the summer. But shout out to Aaggressive Insurance.com. Use the code five. And Adele, thank you for your time. Peace y’all.

Summer League is over for the Miami Heat and although the basketball wasn’t always pretty, the Heat did have the opportunity to evaluate many young prospects. Greg Sylvander & Digital Adel focus attention on recently drafted Kasperus Jakučionis, give their summer league grades for him and also highlight other HEAT prospects worth noting from the games in Las Vegas,

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