The Miami Heat are very much looking forward to the 2025-2026 NBA season. The franchise is looking to build off its first-round playoff exit from this past year and instead build back up to the dynasty it once was. It\u2019s always a climb, but things are looking up.<\/p>\n
One man who should be able to help them do that is rookie Kasparas Jakucionis. The 19-year-old Lithuanian spoke about his upcoming NBA debut during a recent interview on The OGs. Kasparas began his interview by detailing his days growing up, and how he chose to watch basketball in Europe rather than in the States. Why? Because that\u2019s all they had in Lithuania.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up, I watched more European basketball just because of time difference. We didn\u2019t have channels to watch NBA. They wouldn\u2019t like 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 stated the University of Illinois alum.<\/p>\n
The show hosts, Heat<\/a> legends Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem, asked Kasparas who the first player was that he followed to the NBA. His answer, unsurprisingly, is the current face of the league and icon for Europeans everywhere, Luka Doncic<\/a>.<\/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. The group then geeked out over The Don\u2019s incredible talents 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 a young player speak about the person who inspired them to pursue professional basketball as their main goal. Jakucionis not only idolized Luka, but he also nearly followed in his footsteps. 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 he stated before explaining why he eventually chose to attend college in the U.S. rather than continue the grind overseas.<\/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 he stated<\/a>. Choosing to play in the NCAA is different from what Doncic did, but Kasparas seemed quite pleased with the decision.<\/p>\n And looking back at it, he didn\u2019t necessarily make a bad decision. He was a standout at Illinois, 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 in trade talks<\/a>, and experienced vets like Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo<\/a>, the Miami side could be a surprise package in a severely depleted Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n Still, 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 the way he claimed, he\u2019ll adjust to the league quite nicely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Heat are very much looking forward to the 2025-2026 NBA season. The franchise is looking to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-96320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}