2025 NBA Draft scouting report: Kasparas Jakucionis, G, Illinois

Summary: Jakucionis is a slick shot-creator with a creative passing gene and a fearless scoring ability, carving up defenses with crafty finishes, step-back jumpers, and jaw-dropping passes. But as a freshman he’d follow up those highlights with turnover brain-farts that derail the hype train.

Comparisons: Goran Dragic, Spencer Dinwiddie, Vasilije Micic

Strengths

Pick-and-roll upside: Jakucionis moves at his own pace and looks to get his teammates involved, showing a natural creativity and a daring nature to his passing. At his size, he can see passing lanes that smaller guards can’t.

Three-level scorer: He can use ball screens to get to all areas to find his own shot with crafty at-rim finishes, fluid shots from midrange, and 3s off the bounce.

Shooting: He’s always shot well over 80% from the line, sometimes close to 90%, whether he was playing for Barcelona or for the Lithuanian national team. Even though he’s an average shooter from 3 at this stage, he’s a safe bet to figure it out. He has smooth mechanics off the catch, and off the dribble he loves getting to his step back.

Effort: In his first possession back on the floor after suffering a forearm injury, he dove for a loose ball. He plays hard. He crashes the boards. He runs the floor. If he can iron out some of his flaws he could become a winning player.

Concerns

Inconsistent production: He got worse as his freshman season wore on. Maybe it’s due to the improved strength of opponents, or his forearm injury, or fatigue. Or some combination. Either way, he became a careless decision-maker as pressure ramped up on him and foul prone as he got targeted more. Sometimes he’d just commit the most boneheaded mistakes, like fouling shooters.

Turnovers: He had more turnovers than made baskets in 10 games as a freshman. And some of his turnovers came in annoying fashion after dribbling the air out of the ball for 10 seconds. Others he tried to do way too much, dribbling into traffic or whipping a pass into a defender clearly in the way.

Defense: Average lateral quickness on defense leaves him prone to getting roasted by smaller, quicker guards. And at 200 pounds, he’s not nearly strong enough to handle true wings. He needs to improve his strength quite a lot, otherwise he’ll be targeted.