Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) 2016-2017

[Svajunas]

So we have a new season of LKL starting. Seems that it should be the best one yet. Teams are improving and this we year we have at least five teams that will fight for first 3 places. The higher overall level of our league is very beneficial for Lithuanian basketball as a brand.

Its nice to see Lietkabelis emerging as a obvious offseason winner. Team seems to be very competitive and a win against Zalgiris yesterday just proves that they mean business this year. Selling record amount of season tickets is also encouraging looking at the future.
On the other hand Siauliai will be disappointing this year. Problems with finances and a team build for bottom 3 place.
Vytautas should be even better this year. First time they have a full roster of equal players. Two in each position. Lets see what Seskus will make of that.

If I would rank teams this year I would go something like that.

1. Zalgiris. Improved from last season in center position and slightly in guard positions. SF position remains to be blackhole. They still kept Motum...what?
2. Rytas. Improved? Probably. Remains to be seen. Giedraitis back from Siauliai, Logan is a beast, Gudaitis finaly growing? Will it all click?
3. Neptunas. Loosing their last seasons best player will cost them. Dont see any significant improvements other then Klimavicius, who still at this age is a bit of a bonehead player. Will Girdziunas be able to emerge as a constant leader?
4-5. Vytautas or Lietkabelis. Both teams improved, both won their first games against higher ranked opponents. Wouldnt be very surprised if one of those teams would finish in 3rd place.
6. Juventus. Still a good team. But didnt improve much compared to last season.
7-8. Probably Siauliai and Pienos Zvaigzdes. Nothing special about those teams. Nice to see Echodas having a significant role in Siauliai.
9-10. Dzukija. Nevezis.

Other then that. 0 improvements in game broadcasting compared to last season. They did not manage to broadcast yesterdays game between Zal and Liet.
Choosing platforms like delfi and tv3play, which are fundamentally bad, is stupid. Specialy when you have a platform like youtube, which works so much better.
Also showing last seasons premiers league games on sport1 television or other stupid tv shows like tv3 pagalbas instead of basketball in a basketball country is much more important.
So this is a number 1 place where LKL HAVE TO improve.

[Straight forward]

Rytas surely improved. Logan is not bull**** point guard as Rytas had last season. Finally they have size and athleticism at 4 which is another key. Team is pretty tough at 3 with Gailius and Jomantas. It's hard to speak about their chances to beat Zalgiris now, they still looking for another guard, but this is more serious Rytas I think.

This might be the best LKL season in years with imptoved Lietkabelis and Vytautas.

[auris1]

So we have a new season of LKL starting. Seems that it should be the best one yet. Teams are improving and this we year we have at least five teams that will fight for first 3 places...

Congrats to you for opening the thread we badly needed with such a thoughtful post .

Other then that. 0 improvements in game broadcasting compared to last season. They did not manage to broadcast yesterdays game between Zal and Liet.
Choosing platforms like delfi and tv3play, which are fundamentally bad, is stupid. Specialy when you have a platform like youtube, which works so much better.

That is there i would disagree with you .
The level of availability to watch LKL games is remarkable . All games so far were streamed live and free to watch online, abroad .
Yes ,LIET vs ZAL broadcast got fucked up . But who am I to complain to ? Guys there got hit with technical glitch , it happens .

https://www.youtube.com/user/LKLTelevizija/videos

Please ,do like LKLTelevizija on Youtube .
Full game of ZAL vs Utena was uploaded just a few hours after it had finished .
I am telling you , no country has this good for watching local basketball live online ,free of charge and using legal sources .

[auris1]

This might be the best LKL season in years with improved Lietkabelis and Vytautas.

It must be that .
For once ,we will have 5 !!! teams being that much better than the rest - than another 5 teams ,and trying to beat the shit out of each other .
Not 2 (ZAL and LR ) as it used to be before long time ago, not 3 (with inclusion of NEP) or not even 4 when JUV made a move and but failed to maintain it nowadays . Five teams .
I think Utena and Pasvalys might bite back for them 5 ,alas ?

[Svajunas]

Congrats to you for opening the thread we badly needed with such a thoughtful post .

That is there i would disagree with you .
The level of availability to watch LKL games is remarkable . All games so far were streamed live and free to watch online, abroad .
Yes ,LIET vs ZAL broadcast got fucked up . But who am I to complain to ? Guys there got hit with technical glitch , it happens .

https://www.youtube.com/user/LKLTelevizija/videos

Please ,do like LKLTelevizija on Youtube .
Full game of ZAL vs Utena was uploaded just a few hours after it had finished .
I am telling you , no country has this good for watching local basketball live online ,free of charge and using legal sources .

well yes and no. all games are availible, but... the quality of the streams are quite low. unless the game is shown on tv, there are almost none (if none) replays. I am sure Im forgeting something more now as well. Also delfi tv and tv3play sucks. they use to stream some of the games on youtube and it was great compared to these two.
p.s. also there is something like 50% of the games dont get stream from the beginning. they start it 1-2 minutes in to the game... whats up With that?

[auris1]

well yes and no. all games are availible, but... the quality of the streams are quite low. unless the game is shown on tv, there are almost none (if none) replays. I am sure Im forgeting something more now as well. Also delfi tv and tv3play sucks. they use to stream some of the games on youtube and it was great compared to these two.
p.s. also there is something like 50% of the games dont get stream from the beginning. they start it 1-2 minutes in to the game... whats up With that?

It is not perfect yet . Probably never will be . Delfi stream on mobile devices is buffering non stop almost every game when live . Petrauskas level commentators are nowhere to be seen ( heard ) . It gets really bad sometimes . But on PC is ok , when I change settings to low .
TV3 streaming is pretty decent in my opinion .
Perhaps streaming on YouTube would be much better , but ... They have reasons why they not doing it .
Maybe they are not allowed to show ads on YouTube , who knows .
But each year it gets better . I think it is a right thing for LKL to do it for now. To broadcast each and every game on Internet for free . I am sure they will try eventually to monetise it somehow , but I feel that LKL brand is just too small to rely for pay per view or subscriptions model .
Another positive thing is that LKL have moment of the game and game highlights available too . Post game interviews . They are there too .
Overall , LKL is moving along just fine with time . LKL website is decent ,every game has full stats live .
And so on .

[Mindozas]

I didn't follow games (broadcasts) online yet, tried just Lietkabelis-Zalgiris. Ok, shit happens, but if overall picture didn't improve, like people are complaining, that is just sad. To be happy just cause we have smth at all?... I could be thankful if some guy is streaming some game and quality is bad, maybe he doesn't has sources to do this, but when official site sucks at it for a few years in a row, I'm not goin' to look for excuses. It's freaking 2016 afterall and you can't organize a simple stream season after season? I'm not even asking for HD, just ordinary stream without lags. Talking about possible paid services in the future, who the hell will pay them after all this? How can you trust them? Even our poor football league had better quality streaming once, on futbolo.tv if I'm not wrong.
Regarding LKL site, livestats, it's the same for years and it's not smth exceptional, just every normal league must have it. And tbh LKL livestats platform is far from best and had own flaws.
Not to have just a bad things, start of the season looks really promising and entertaining, surely one of the most competitive ones. Hope all teams won't collapse during the season as it usually happens when paychecks must be sent

[Svajunas]

I didn't follow games (broadcasts) online yet, tried just Lietkabelis-Zalgiris. Ok, shit happens, but if overall picture didn't improve, like people are complaining, that is just sad. To be happy just cause we have smth at all?... I could be thankful if some guy is streaming some game and quality is bad, maybe he doesn't has sources to do this, but when official site sucks at it for a few years in a row, I'm not goin' to look for excuses. It's freaking 2016 afterall and you can't organize a simple stream season after season? I'm not even asking for HD, just ordinary stream without lags. Talking about possible paid services in the future, who the hell will pay them after all this? How can you trust them? Even our poor football league had better quality streaming once, on futbolo.tv if I'm not wrong.
Regarding LKL site, livestats, it's the same for years and it's not smth exceptional, just every normal league must have it. And tbh LKL livestats platform is far from best and had own flaws.
Not to have just a bad things, start of the season looks really promising and entertaining, surely one of the most competitive ones. Hope all teams won't collapse during the season as it usually happens when paychecks must be sent

To be honest I would pay reasonable price for HD quality stream With replays and clockshot.

Talking about their website, one thing that bugs me the most is that it is dificult to say what date the game is going to be on. I mean , there is a row With all games, played and to be played and its all grey... ahh I hope you get what I mean. Last year there was couple of times when I was waiting for a game just to see that it will be NeXT day because I missread the date.

[Mindozas]

To be honest I would pay reasonable price for HD quality stream With replays and clockshot.

I'd also pay for it But imagine if we'll again have full of bugs season and before next one they'll announce - now our streams are paid, we'll have the best quality and etc. I wouldn't trust them for sure It'd probably take some time, some reviews from reliable persons who saw the games, to convince me.

Talking about their website, one thing that bugs me the most is that it is dificult to say what date the game is going to be on. I mean , there is a row With all games, played and to be played and its all grey... ahh I hope you get what I mean. Last year there was couple of times when I was waiting for a game just to see that it will be NeXT day because I missread the date.

Yeah, that's a bit bothering too, but since I'm playin' LKL manager, I'm well aware of gamedays, that saves me I guess But what I dislike, is their search option. It was great when they added all historical results and main stats, but if f.e. in FIBA site you can find any, even retired, player via search option, on LKL site it's possible only with current ones. Also hard to find all articles related to player

[Svajunas]

I'd also pay for it But imagine if we'll again have full of bugs season and before next one they'll announce - now our streams are paid, we'll have the best quality and etc. I wouldn't trust them for sure It'd probably take some time, some reviews from reliable persons who saw the games, to convince me.



Yeah, that's a bit bothering too, but since I'm playin' LKL manager, I'm well aware of gamedays, that saves me I guess But what I dislike, is their search option. It was great when they added all historical results and main stats, but if f.e. in FIBA site you can find any, even retired, player via search option, on LKL site it's possible only with current ones. Also hard to find all articles related to player

Pay per game option could solve the trust issue at the start.

[Mindozas]

Ok, this was the evening when I decided to follow games, ffs, f*ck it... At first none of livestats were updating automatically, you had to refresh manually...livestats. Game between Rytas and Lietkabelis was lagging quite a lot at 2nd half, when finally, with 10s left on clock, with Rytas leading by 1 - stream went down at all. So nothing changed for the better at all, now I've seen it myself. Sad. And this season looks so promising so far and would be so fun to follow it normally, another evening of surprises (Pasvalys, Nevezis wins), close games (Rytas-Lietkabelis, Neptunas-Pasvalys)

[auris1]

Ok, this was the evening when I decided to follow games, ffs, f*ck it... At first none of livestats were updating automatically, you had to refresh manually...livestats. Game between Rytas and Lietkabelis was lagging quite a lot at 2nd half, when finally, with 10s left on clock, with Rytas leading by 1 - stream went down at all. So nothing changed for the better at all, now I've seen it myself. Sad. And this season looks so promising so far and would be so fun to follow it normally, another evening of surprises (Pasvalys, Nevezis wins), close games (Rytas-Lietkabelis, Neptunas-Pasvalys)

Today, it was bad . I agree .
NEV-VYT stream was good for first 2 quarters .
Later, after 5 pm , my firestick would only be only on slow mo on each of them 3 games it was on delfi .
I abandoned it straight away .
TV3 website was lagging as well .
Hopefully they can upgrade servers to cope with demand ,otherwise it just doesn't make sense .
Maybe they weren't expecting such a demand ,who knows . It was just annoying because i watched so many ads with where our internet was made out of being "probably " fastest in the world ,it is just we do not have enough servers to support that .
oh well

[Mindozas]

Today, it was bad . I agree .
NEV-VYT stream was good for first 2 quarters .
Later, after 5 pm , my firestick would only be only on slow mo on each of them 3 games it was on delfi .
I abandoned it straight away .
TV3 website was lagging as well .
Hopefully they can upgrade servers to cope with demand ,otherwise it just doesn't make sense .
Maybe they weren't expecting such a demand ,who knows . It was just annoying because i watched so many ads with where our internet was made out of being "probably " fastest in the world ,it is just we do not have enough servers to support that .
oh well

I don't know man what they are thinking, but it's so annoyin'. I mean after so exciting start of the season, we are forced to discuss technologies, cause we simply can't see the games normally... and each year it's the same. I'm not an IT guy, so can't tell where exactly the problem lies, but I just can't believe that it's really that hard to fix it, or so expensive. I'm leaning towards laziness or just don't giving a f*ck, especially when it comes to such companies like tv3

[auris1]

I don't know man what they are thinking, but it's so annoyin'. I mean after so exciting start of the season, we are forced to discuss technologies, cause we simply can't see the games normally... and each year it's the same. I'm not an IT guy, so can't tell where exactly the problem lies, but I just can't believe that it's really that hard to fix it, or so expensive. I'm leaning towards laziness or just don't giving a f*ck, especially when it comes to such companies like tv3

The IT guy is smoking weed .I am sure of that . They all do that .
But -
if original stream is A ,and they put that stream to broadcast on B ,surely is B that is not coping with a load . B being delfi and Tv3 .
So B also need C1 C2 etc servers to deliver smooth broadcast to me or you . Which capacity nowadays is too limited .

[auris1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZAYK9Ar5qo

Pauliukenas meltdown .
After loosing to Zalgiris by plus 50 .
Good for him .Meltdown is just another word for - he got shitty team with some shitty players who can not play shit to save their lives . And there is no money .
Awesome . It will be deleted soon , as soon as that It guy smoking weed will wake up )