Lithuanian National Team 2014!

[Straight forward]

Don't forget that next year is the most important tournament so far in this cycle. There's no way Kazlas will bring some untested youngster to replace Jasaitis (I'm not talking about Gailius). Of course, no one can tell how players will look like after almost a year, but presuming that nothing will change too drastically, none of these youngsters could bring to the team what Jasaitis does - experience, defense. That could be crucial thing in tournament like this. Now I'm hoping that Simas will find good team for him, will have enough playin' time and a bit different role he had in Kuban, where he had mostly defensive duties during limited time

I also thought this way, but in his last interview Kazlauskas openly said he expects that some youngsters will come. Maybe he meant that he expects them to get closer, maybe more. I fully agree with your statement. If it was Kemzura, I would be 100% sure he wouldn't go with new players. Kazlauskas on other hand can integrate new players, he did that in the past, be it Žalgiris or NT (he integrated Juškevičius and Vasiliauskas this year). He was pretty close to get in Gudaitis as soon as this summer, but he actually was right taking Kšistof - he still provided couple of good games. There's not too many chances simply because we don't have proven youngs at SG/SF position, but if some-one will stand out, under Kazlauskas he'll have a chance. Besides, I'm not sure we desperately need two bulldogs at SF, Mačiulis is enough and Kuzminskas is taking those little steps forward. Personally, I thought we had more problems in offence than defence in this tournament. So, if Jasaitis won't have obviously better season, I wouldn't expect he'll be much of a factor next years.

[Hepcat]

Everybody talk how Motiejunas failed in this tournament, but Jankunas was even worse playing almost the same minutes.

Their plus/minus stats though indicate that Jankūnas may have been the more effective of the two overall.

I expect both Sabonis and Gudaitis in the camp next year - specially Gudaitis who will have a good chances to make the team, IMO.

I think/hope Gailius, Ulanovas, Giedraitis, Grigonis, Dimsa will have their chance to fight for this SG/SF spot instead of Jasaitis.

I'd be very surprised to see currently twenty year old Marius Grigonis and Tomas Dimša invited to camp next summer. And I'd be absolutely flabbergasted if Coach Kazlauskas invites Domantas Sabonis, who is only eighteen years old right now, to camp. None of these fellows have been dominant even in Youth tournaments so far.

[Hepcat]

But need to admit, that your current situation with PG ( definitely except Mantas. As for Juskavicius - he's more SG than PG) quite lamentable. So, you need to do something with quialitative development of PG's.

I remember i've read Marcelo's (Sarunas Marciulionis) interview where he said about quite poor situation with lithuanin PG's development. He offered to make more bias on individual skills,to learn to beat opponents off the dribble,take it into the paint and shoot the short jumper or dish off (1x1 moves).

But last year Marciulionis finally decided to go against the trend and his school is teaching what he is preaching. As a result his school will loose 350 students this year but hopefully now it can focus on quality over quantity.

We simply need some of Šaras and Šiška who were the brains of the NT since 2000.... The problem is that we don't have creative players. Jasikevičius and Šiškauskas had the ability to read the game. This upcoming Lithuanian team would be unstoppable if they had decision makers, I don't expect we'll have that level creators of Šaras and Šiška.

Hmmmm. Now I know that Šarūnas Jasikevičius currently holds a position of assistant coach with Žalgiris. I'm wondering though whether he might still be available to impart some of his skills to aspiring PGs at say a summer basketball camp sponsored by the Marčiulionis academy. Jasikevičius certainly has the skills that Marčiulionis would like to see Lithuanian youngsters develop.

[Straight forward]

I'd be very surprised to see currently twenty year old Marius Grigonis and Tomas Dimša invited to camp next summer. And I'd be absolutely flabbergasted if Coach Kazlauskas invites Domantas Sabonis, who is only eighteen years old right now, to camp. None of these fellows have been dominant even in their Youth tournaments so far.

All of them were in preliminary broadened list.

It depends how you see it. I thought Sabonis was pretty dominant in U-16 Eurochamp, 14 points and 14 rebounds per game. I expected a little more in U18 - 14 ppg and 11 rebounds, but the defence was all on him. Kazlauskas said couple of good words about his season in Malaga.

As for Grigonis and Dimša they are more of a future, but it's possible. Both playing at the good level in their clubs. I follow Grigonis 2 years and he has been very consistent for his age and very efficient. He's the guy who has some genes of Šaras and Šiška. That's what makes me optimistic. Even Jasikevičius never was setting the world on fire in U- level. But his IQ, ability to read the game and the talent took over eventually. While Dišma is really athletic and already rather good defensively. Imagine Grigonis playing well for Manresa in ACB this season, and I can easily see a ticket to the camp because he's one of those players that Kazlauskas and other coaches are desperately looking for. He started pretty well BTW, 13 points against Juventud in his first friendly game.

[Shawshank]

People for eurobasket2015 where european elite i mean all dirks,parkers,gasols gonna meet dont be funny what dimsa or grigonis can help? the best scenerio is for them making camp and be long enough like cizauskas,gudaitis this two summers.No chance makign the team next summer or even getting minutes in european champ there is no easy games anymore.If we are talking about 2015-2016 summers we have to leave this same team with Kalnietis,Kleiza,Javtokas coming back and maybe gailius .Even Gudaitis will not make a team next summer im sure.Too many good bigs we have right now.Those 5 that played 2014 and +kleiza,javtokas theres already 7 bigs,in what area gudaitis or sabonis cant help more than they can?
With guards position in other things,but still i believe Kalnietis,Seibutis,Pocius will be our main trio in guard lineup like 2013-2014 was all other 1 or 2 guards that will make a team will be at the end of the bench in 2015.Put kalnietis in lineup juskevicius would be in vasiliauskas place when playoofs started this summer no minutes most likely in close games.Kazlauskas likes to play 3 guard rotation in playoofs.

Overall next eurobasket is definetely not for rookies players.For rookies was 2013 and 2014 champs.2015 and2016 champs it where all elite meets with the best of them. Most likely one young guard could make a team like juskevicius but all other i believe gonna be proven players.Between Jasaitis and Gailius discusion is fair enough it can happen.The last 2 summer was to get experience for younger players like Valanciunas,Motiejunas,Kuzminskas+ Juskevicius was a suprise thats all.We didnt integrated more new faces that will help us to fight for olimpic dream again.In 2015 is not a time for searching no more its a time for putting all our best powers we have and try to fight our way to 7th olimpic games in arrow.

[Straight forward]

Most likely one young guard could make a team like juskevicius

Juškevičius will be 26yo next summer. He's out of young players' territory really For Lith standards I would treat a player being young till he turns to 24.

[macleopard13]

As for Grigonis and Dimša they are more of a future, but it's possible. Both playing at the good level in their clubs. I follow Grigonis 2 years and he has been very consistent for his age and very efficient. He's the guy who has some genes of Šaras and Šiška. That's what makes me optimistic. Even Jasikevičius never was setting the world on fire in U- level. But his IQ, ability to read the game and the talent took over eventually. While Dišma is really athletic and already rather good defensively. Imagine Grigonis playing well for Manresa in ACB this season, and I can easily see a ticket to the camp because he's one of those players that Kazlauskas and other coaches are desperately looking for. He started pretty well BTW, 13 points against Joventut in his first friendly game.

I can understand why Grigonis has a future (I'm glad he's moving up the ranks this season ), but I just can't see Dimsa playing for our national team. He's quick, athletic and a decent three-point shooter, but those are pretty much his only strengths right now. Last year, he was probably the least efficient player on Zalgiris (besides Kupsas). He also didn't impress me that much in the U20 tournament, averaging a humble 9.8 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.4 apg. Pocius was much more dominant in that tournament (20 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 1.3 apg), and Mantas Kalnietis was considerably better than Dimsa at his age (6.8 ppg, 2 rpg, 2 apg, 8.5 effpg in Euroleague vs Dimsa's 3.7 ppg, 1.6 rpg, 0.6 apg, 2 effpg).

I like Kariniauskas better as a prospect shooting guard. The man works hard and is a much better-rounded player than Dimsa. We'll see how they'll turn out this season, but Kariniauskas looks more promising to me right now.

[auris1]

Well, I never said we are not good We are good, but we are not that good we used to be and generally in downtrend. That was my point.

If someone browsed through all them names that played for our Nt team since 1991 and compared them one to each other,just like that ,one name against the other ,yes,that person might agree with you and rightly so. That list of titans stops with ,err, Jasikevicius ,i guess?
No more of them big names so far as for now,just a few in the making perhaps ,but it is still too soon to tell.
But...Basketball in them 20+ years moved on ,and fortunately, so did we. .Big names don't play that much of the role in this game ,because it is all about team play ,right?
I mean,USA had to learn it hard way ,and so we all did .
So yeah,focus nowadays,as i understand this game,is on the team,not individual players .Each and every year ,this process has to repeat itself.You build the team based on available players and hope for the best . This year especially, we build a team on almost ruins ,but we did it anyways.We managed to absorb the loss of Mantas ,and Linas and Javtokas and yet ,somehow ,squeezed ourselves to a fourth place.Lucky
draw and all that shit,but still ...
So if anything,Mindozas ,we are in opposite of a "downtrend" .
Yeah,we lack personalities like Sabonis,Jasikevicius and you name it,the list can go on and on,but we excel as a team.And this shit matters.

[Mindozas]

If someone browsed through all them names that played for our Nt team since 1991 and compared them one to each other,just like that ,one name against the other ,yes,that person might agree with you and rightly so. That list of titans stops with ,err, Jasikevicius ,i guess?
No more of them big names so far as for now,just a few in the making perhaps ,but it is still too soon to tell.
But...Basketball in them 20+ years moved on ,and fortunately, so did we. .Big names don't play that much of the role in this game ,because it is all about team play ,right?

Big names plays big role in the game, the thing is that there're no big names on international stage it used to be 10-20 years ago. So you can look at it from different angles. Less big names - more involvement of other players, but teams which has those big names, has big advantage. Of course not everytime they can benefit of that, like Spain this year f.e., but still it makes big difference.

So if anything,Mindozas ,we are in opposite of a "downtrend" .
Yeah,we lack personalities like Sabonis,Jasikevicius and you name it,the list can go on and on,but we excel as a team.And this shit matters.

I'd really like to share your view and optimism, but the only thing where I could see an improvement in this "as a team" term - defense after Kazlas took over the NT. But still it's very unstable and needs time and work to get trustworth. That's all. Offensivelly there's no comparison to the team-work, ball movement, creativity we had with Saras-Siska generation, not even close. And sadly, I don't see it getting closer anytime soon, atleast not in this Olympic cycle. So overall, I can't call it otherwise than "downtrend". Just previous NT generation was much more talented than this one. I'm just hoping that defensive work and this quite static offense will be enough to make it to Olympics, that's all that matters to me

[Straight forward]

I'd really like to share your view and optimism, but the only thing where I could see an improvement in this "as a team" term - defense after Kazlas took over the NT.

Current NT has one more advantage against previous generation (which overall was better, at least so far). It's personalities in the frontline - particularly Kleiza and Valančiūnas. You can admire Songaila and Erelijus Žukauskas at their best years, but Songaila never had close impact to the NT as Kleiza had and has. Even in 2006 WC were we had only two strong players - Songaila and Macijauskas. It's safe to say Eurelijus never had the impact as Valančiūnas had this year and the guy only starting.

Again, even those great teams of 2003 and 2004 lacked real presence in the paint. Our backourt was so good that we could play against any team in the world (and I'm missing that kind of basketball a lot), but we had no bigs that we could go after when the shots didn't fall. We had no bigs who could create their own shots and be constant offensive threat. Only Songaila a bit, but he also was more of a pick&roll and pick&pop player.

My bold prediction is that this JV's and Dmo's generation might surpass Šaras' generation if couple of creative, high IQ players will pan out. We have one hell of fronltine upcoming with Sabonis and Gudaitis. And the coherence of NT only improving every year. The tradition and culture of Lith basketball is getting stronger. That is - Lithuania as a team always has advantage against most of the teams. Besides I'm saying this with condition that Kalnietis should be able to play at the high level at least 6 more years. Still a lot ifs though Even if we won't set that bar higher of the backourt in next 4,5 yeats (which is highly unlikely knowing current poor level) we still have at least decent chance to be among best teams. Next Eurobasket will tell if we can keep it up in a very strong tournament as well.

[Hepcat]

I'd really like to share your view and optimism, but the only thing where I could see an improvement in this "as a team" term - defense after Kazlas took over the NT.

Here on this forum we're always arguing about the composition Team Lietuva should take next summer. The "problem" we have is there are more potential candidates for each position, with the notable exception of PG, than there are places on the team. That's why it's always so difficult to slot in a promising youngster into the team when the veterans still seem to have what it takes. But this problem actually augurs well for the success of Lithuanian basketball for the foreseeable future out to 2020 or so.

[macleopard13]

Since Jasaitis' game has really gone downhill over the last couple of years in the NT (this past summer, he was especially inefficient, as we all saw), I think that Gailius and Orelikas can really compete with him for a spot on the national team next summer. Which one do you think has a better chance at making the NT?

Gailius - PROS: a universal player who can rebound, pass, shoot and steal. Pretty agile. Defense is okay. CONS: A streaky shooter and a bit of a ballhog.
Orelikas - PROS: a excellent shooter with decent basketball IQ and good rebounding skills. Plays good defense. Likes to pass to his teammates. CONS: slow, not as universal.

Gailius: Eurocup, age 24 (28 MPG, 15.7 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 1.4 APG, 15.3 EFF, 48% 2PT, 32% 3PT, 10 games)
Orelikas: Eurocup, age 24 (31 MPG, 16.8 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 2.7 APG, 19.7 EFF, 62% 2PT, 44% 3PT, 6 games)

I prefer Gailius just because of his Euroleague experience and versatility, but I'm guessing it'd be a close race between the two. What do you guys think?