NBA Draft: Illinois' Jakucionis Shines Despite Dropping Big Ten Opener

Despite Illinois dropping their first Big Ten matchup of the season to Northwestern, freshman guard Kasparas Jakucionis had one of his best showings as a draft prospect. He has had a very impressive start to his first year in college, averaging 14.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 1.5 steals, with shooting splits of 48.5%/42.9%/87.2%. His steady productivity and natural feel for the game have propelled him into conversations as a top-two lead guard prospect at this point and could very well end up with him being considered a top-five player in the 2025 NBA draft. Let’s dive into Jakucionis’ play in this outing, as well as his total body of work up to this point in the season.

Jakucionis finished this game with a well-rounded stat line of 20 points, ten rebounds, seven assists, one block and one steal. Northwestern did a good job of applying tight pressure and attempting to hard-hedge screens. While this rattled him at times and led to several turnovers, more often than not, he was able to either find open teammates or escape due to his creative footwork. Being able to adjust to a wide variety of defensive systems bodes very well for his adaptability at the next level.

While his playmaking has looked like his strong suit, he also did a great job showing his versatility as a scorer. In terms of three-point shooting, Jakucionis finished this game shooting 60% from deep on 6-of-10 attempts. He knocked down jumpers in a variety of ways, and the form and results were consistent on catch-and-shoot looks as well as pull-ups off the bounce. One play that stood out came off a pump fake that caused the closing defender to bite, at which point Jakucionis took a one-dribble side step to create space before quickly elevating and knocking down the shot. As mentioned earlier, he has good footwork and regularly used this to get into the paint, patiently dissect the defense, and finish with soft touch near the rim.

His ability to impact games by gathering rebounds and quickly pushing in transition also stood out, as he grabbed ten rebounds, nine of which came on the defensive end. This was his first game with double-digit rebounds, and it looked natural, as he does a solid job of putting his body on his man to limit offensive rebounds before quickly tracking down the ball. It is always a plus at the NBA level for a lead guard to have the ability to grab boards himself in order to keep the pace of play high, and Jakucionis is one of the best in this class at that.

This outing did a great job of highlighting his overall impact and high level of versatility. He brings a very interesting blend of offensive feel and positional size at 6-foot-6, which will surely garner a lot of attention from NBA teams. As the season progresses, we will need to see him clean up the turnovers, but the rest of his game has looked NBA-ready. Despite not being an elite athlete, his high-level feel for the offensive end and on-ball creativity have looked more than enough to make up for his shortcomings.