Miami Heat Rookie Struggling Early in Summer League

While the Las Vegas Summer League will be the event with the most eyes, Salt Lake City and the California Classic have offered a nice appetizer for hungry NBA fans.

Teams like the Lakers, Heat, Spurs, Jazz and more have faced off in early Summer League action, providing first professional looks at NBA rookies.

One of those has been Heat rookie Kasparas Jakucionis, who has struggled mightily through two contests.

The Illinois product was once thought of to be a top-10 prospect in the class, but saw the biggest slide of any prospect on draft night, landing with Miami at No. 20. A big-bodied point guard, Jakucionis has a suave game, capable of filling it up with shot-making and table-setting for his teammates. But his slide was likely due to his lack of pro-level athleticism and high numbers of turnovers.

Both of those have reared their head through two Summer League games. 

In Game 1, he scored just three points on 1-for-7 shooting, turning the ball over three times.

In his second contest, this time against the Lakers, Jakucionis didn’t fare much better. He failed to score a field goal, scoring just four points on 0-for-3 shooting. Even worse, he turned the ball over five times as one of the lead handlers.

There’s a few pieces of good news, the first being that his defense — a relative question mark throughout the cycle — has looked better through both games than anticipated. He’s moved his feet well, even managing three steals against the Lakers on Sunday.

The second is that point guards typically take awhile to develop, especially those with more skill opposed to athleticism. Jakucionis will have ample time to develop his on-ball skills at the NBA level, in an organization known for doing just that, no less.

Jakucionis will try his hand at Summer League success again on Tuesday, July 8, vs. the Golden State Warriors.