The Heat have signed 2025 first-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis to his rookie scale deal, per Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The former Illinois guard, selected with the No. 20 pick, will earn $3.66MM in 2025/26, and $17.7MM over the course of his first four pro seasons in the league.
The 19-year-old out of Lithuania began his career playing for his native Perlas Vilnius in 2020/21, before suiting up for FC Barcelona of the EuroLeague and Spanish ACB league (Liga ACB) from 2022-24. During his one year at Illinois, Jakucionis was named to the All-Big Ten Third Team.
Across 33 contests for the Illini in 2024/25, the 6’6″ wing averaged 15.0 PPG, 5.7 RPG, and 4.7 APG. He posted shooting splits of .440/.318/.845.
Jakucionis was Miami’s only draft pick last week. Last year’s Heat finished with a middling 37-45 record and the No. 10 seed in the East, but survived both their play-in tournament games to claim the conference’s final playoff spot. Miami was quickly swept by Cleveland in the first round.
Brooklyn on drugs not taking this guy. Great pick for Miami.
It’s hard to know that he will be better long term than Traore. It’s a scouting and guessing game now.
Which duo would you rather have bw
Kasparas Jakucionis/Matas Buzelis
Nolan Traore/Zacch Risacher
Nba ready, can run the offence and efficient. Has size and length to improve on the defensive end. Crazy high IQ for such a young man. Traore is a me guy who needs to fill out and make way better decisions. Turns the ball over quite a bit. I know which PG I’d rather coach. How many shoot first PGs have succeeded in the NBA? Iverson I guess was a point.Me player, didn’t win a ring. Russ, me player, zero rings. Maybe Nash, zero rings. Steph Curry, basketball God, can do whatever he wants. I’ll take the Lithuanian. I want star wings or bigs. Each to their own.
“I want star wings or bigs.”
See, Brooklyn were OK with using 19th pick on a player who has a 10% chance to become a star, over Kasparas, who I agree is much better player now, but they probably thought that his potential to be a star max guy is 5%, or even lower.
NBA teams will always do it, they will always take a swing at what they perceive as higher star potential. Portland drafted the Chinese guy for that.
But I do agree that if they were hunting for a star, maybe they should’ve taken somebody else, like that forward Washington took. I know they were probably happy to take Traore as he was projected to go top 5 before having a down year. This approach has worked for many teams in the past. But I just don’t trust French guards, I don’t think they can lead with the ball in their hands. French players are all about athleticism for me.
Worse Duncan Robinson they hope becomes Duncan Robinson; depends on final roster and what happens with Herro, Jaime, Jovic, but I’m not a fan of the pick as of now, but again, it is what it is
Kasparas should of went in lottery. I’m surprised he dropped this much. Great pick for Heat. I can understand TWolves passing on him. They got a big that can help them now. I don’t get why Wiz and Nets passed on him. Kasparas will be better than Traore. All these players are still young. So it’s really all about upside and coaching. You take a 19 yr old. Even if he is a top talent. You won’t see real results for 3-5 yrs.
What I like about Kasparas is his size and vision. You can’t teach that. I like him a lot. Heat develop their players. So he is in a good place. Mitchell is a tough 2way guard. So he can learn a lot from backing him up. Heat lucked out with Kasparas ….