We had 4 main shooters as I mentioned in 2022. Grigonis was unleashing 5.3 threes per game, Brazdeikis 4.3, Kuzminskas 3,7 (50%), Jokubaitis 3. Others took significantly less shots.
Brazdeikis was shooting solid 36%, but I'm not sure he can keep it up with this. Doubt it. I think Ulanovas is more reliable shooter and he should take some Iggy's shots. Kuz was shooting with great 50%, but I still think we are just too vulnerable with him on the court. I mean JV and Kuz as frontline
You would have incredibly hard time to find worse defensive frontline than that. I hope Sedekerskis will take some of these open threes from Kuz. Just a hope though. Jokubatis will probably shoot just as much as he did, but hopefully with better %. I don't need more threes from Jokubaitis, I need him to be more aggressive with his penetration, creating for others and himself finishing strong inside or from mid range.
Again, there's only few centers like Sabonis in the world. There's Jokic and upcoming Sengun. These are not merely non shooting bigs (even Jokic was taking only 2.2 threes per game in EB, not entirely shooting big as well), they make other better and they create great opportunities to shooters. So even if themselves they shoot little, but they make their team's good shooting teams. Serbia failed it, but I think we shouldn't doubt Jokic can make Serbia to win it all. Serbia's main enemy is Serbia itself. If Sabonis had versatile scorers around him, he can make the team a great scoring team.
Does Lithuania have Fox, Barnes, Huerter, Monk, Murray kinda pieces? Well, no. And that's sad. Case if we look at 90's, 00's and early 10's we had at least one or few players of such level or better. Now we don't have single perimeter player in the NBA. Last time we had it it was Kleiza who could score double digits in the NBA for a PO team.
That's the reason why I don't really see us winning much in WC 23, but I would love to see wrong though. I mean look at France, they have Fournier, they may even trough back Batum or the same prodigy Wemby might already be dominant basically. Serbia has Bogdanovic is healthy and EL MVP Micic. Spain will likely have both Rubio and elite American EL guard. Let's face it, today we don't have perimeter players of such kind and it already sucks. We are living for too long with much inferior talent. Way too long for a BB country. I mean Turkey can wait couple of decades, but not Lithuania
Seriously, since 2014 we don't have perimeter stars of FIBA BB. With Kleiza it ended and it seems that it will continue to at least 23 and 24. So like 10 years we are playing with it, and most likely 2015 will be the only tournament when we succeeded to grab medals without true perimeter stand-outs. 1 exception in 10 years most likely.
In 2025 I already see Jokubaitis being a star more or less, I think he will either brake out in 24 or 25 and also I hope that 21yo Buzelis will show up for Lithuanian in Eurobasket 2025 and will do more or less similar things what Franz Wagner was doing for Germany this summer. Playing a little up and down but being already huge presence out there with 15.2ppg.
When I say I hope that Sabonis and Jokubaitis roles will be increasing, I'm not expecting them to combat obviously superior NTs as USA, fully packed France, Serbia, Spain and very likely Australia, Slovenia, Canada, Germany being superior too. With all these teams, aside maybe USA, we can fight, but all these teams have an obvious edge which almost every time decide the outcome. I only say that's the right direction as these 2 are our highest IQ and most complete and talented players on the roster. You look at the roster what you have? You have NBA all star and EL Rising Star who can be NBA player one day (perimeter NBA player which is HUGE BONUS compared to any big in the NBA when it comes to FIBA). Our direction is clear - NT will depend more and more on them.
1 Jokubaitis, 3 Buzelis, 5 Sabonis
That's our ultimate star power for upcoming decade, but 2025 the soonest it starts as I see it. Now it's just 2 NBA bigs and the rest of entire roster of decent/solid El players. Just 1 or 2 real stound-outs in perimeter will be complete game changer for us.
my eye test looking at their shooting mechanisms Dimsa at minimum is not worse 
