NBA Expert Shreds Heat Rookie's Summer League Run

The Miami Heat's front office under longtime team president Pat Riley has been lauded for decades, and rightly so. Beyond generally hitting on their lottery picks (Michael Beasley aside), the Heat have managed to uncover gold later in the draft — and, frequently, beyond it.

Miami has managed to develop undrafted players like Udonis Haslem, Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent, Kendrick Nunn, Max Strus and Caleb Martin into long-term NBA pros. The Heat also appear to have nabbed some legitimate frontcourt rotation keepers in recent non-lottery first round picks Kel'el Ware and Nikola Jovic.

So when the Heat selected guard Kasparas Jakucionis with the No. 20 selection in last month's 2025 NBA draft, most pundits assumed the University of Illinois product would be an impact player.

Per John Hollinger of The Athletic, that was not the case in Summer League, where the 19-year-old struggled.

"Miami’s first-rounder had his positive moments, including a 19-point first half against Atlanta," Hollinger writes. "But the overall trend line from his six games of summer action was pretty disappointing."

"Jakucionis’ 9.1 PER came partly as a result of wayward 3-point shooting (6 of 28) that wouldn’t keep me up at night," Hollinger allows. "He’s historically been a reliable shooter and made 23 of 25 from the line in summer league."

Across six Summer League contests, the 6-foot-6 rookie averaged 9.5 points on .318/.214/.920 shooting splits, 2.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists (against a troubling 3.7 turnovers), and 1.5 steals.

"The plague of turnovers, however, is a different story, as it followed a troubling trend from his freshman season at Illinois," Hollinger notes. "Jakucionis had 22 miscues, set against 14 made baskets and 15 assists, and that’s just not a survivable rate from an on-ball guard. Mix in some iffy finishing inside the paint and it’s clear Miami’s player development machine has some work to do to get Jakucionis NBA game-ready."