The Miami Heat are looking forward to the 2025-2026 season, keen to build off their first-round playoff exit this past year, and establish a dynasty like they once did. The climb is daunting, but things are looking great for the franchise.<\/p>\n
Rookie Kasparas Jakucionis will be a key piece in that journey. The 19-year-old Lithuanian spoke about his upcoming NBA debut during a recent interview on The OGs.<\/p>\n
Kasparas began by detailing his days growing up, and how he chose to watch basketball in Europe rather than in the States. Why? Simply because that\u2019s all they had in Lithuania.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up, I watched more European basketball just because of [the] time difference. We didn\u2019t have channels to watch [the] NBA. They wouldn\u2019t like [to] translate it, you know? Maybe some YouTube highlights you would watch, but that\u2019s the only thing that was possible. When I was older, I started to watch more NBA,\u201d said the University of Illinois alum.<\/p>\n
The show hosts, Heat<\/a> legends Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem, asked Kasparas who the first NBA player was that he started following. His answer, unsurprisingly, was Luka Doncic<\/a>, the current face of the league and icon for Europeans everywhere.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Luka was in Madrid, I watched him a lot. Now that he\u2019s transitioned, when he got drafted, I watch him the most,\u201d stated Kasparas.<\/p>\n The group then geeked out over The Don\u2019s incredible skills on the hardwood. \u201cThe playmaking, watching shot creation, all that kind of stuff,\u201d\u00a0added Jakucionis.<\/p>\n It\u2019s always a treat to see young players speak about the person who inspired them to pursue professional basketball. Jakucionis not only idolized Luka but also nearly followed in his footsteps. Just that, instead of Madrid, he went to play basketball in Barcelona.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was in Barcelona. I got a chance to work with all the professional guys, and almost all of them were in the NBA at some point,\u201d said Jakucionis, before explaining why he eventually chose to attend college in the U.S. rather than continue the professional grind in Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to be more into U.S. culture. Closer to the NBA. The competition in college is pretty good because everybody is hungry,\u201d\u00a0added<\/a> Jakucionis.<\/p>\n Of course, opting to play in the NCAA took Jakucionis through a different path than what Doncic took. But Kasparas seemed quite pleased with the decision. He flourished at Illinois, too, averaging 15.2 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game in the 2024-2025 season. This made him a standout for this year\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n The Heat scooped him up with the 20th overall pick, and he\u2019ll look to make an immediate impact on an offense that stagnated in the postseason. With young talent like Kel\u2019el Ware, whom the Heat have deemed untouchable<\/a> in trade talks, and experienced vets like Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo<\/a>, Miami could be a surprise package in a severely depleted Eastern Conference this upcoming season.<\/p>\n There\u2019s plenty of time for Kasparas. Like No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg, he\u2019s a young boy in a man\u2019s league. He\u2019ll probably need a few games to shake off the nerves, but if he follows Doncic\u2019s footsteps the way he claimed, he is bound to adjust to the league naturally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Heat are looking forward to the 2025-2026 season, keen to build off their first-round playoff exit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-83425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}