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Pat Riley Had a Very Enthusiastic Reaction After the Miami Heat’s First Round Pick

Stephen Douglas

The Miami Heat took Kasparas Jakucionis with the No. 20 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
The Miami Heat took Kasparas Jakucionis with the No. 20 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. / Brad Penner-Imagn Images
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The Miami Heat took Kasparas Jakucionis with the 20th pick in the 2025 NBA draft. The 6'6" guard from Lithuania averaged 15.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 4.7 assists in his one season of Big Ten basketball at Illinois.

No one was more excited about the Heat's pick than team president Pat Riley, who stood up as the pick was announced and started enthusiastically pointing at people around the team's draft night war room.

Riley and the Heat recently missed out on Kevin Durant, so it's good that they were able to land a player they could get excited about. The pick the team used to grab Jakucionis probably would have gone to Phoenix if it had traded for Durant, so this is a good reminder that you should always have a Plan B, like Jakucionis, or a Plan C, like Jonathan Kuminga.

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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