backourt to do what take 15th place in world cup and go home after group stage again ?
Balciunas telling fairy tales how 23 old players are way more motivated,so loosing half of our euroleague players no big deal
Yeah, that's why I say that roster for 2023. Well we'll get out of the group surely. And will face Greece and USA fighting for PO spot. And we can contest Greece, specially if Sabonis comes. Obviously we are underdogs and most likely will lose, but we can legitimately contest. That roster that I named is not trash. On other hand, even 100% roster wouldn't be medal contender objectively. We're not there yet. Specially in WC were USA, Australia and likely Canada also come as red hot contenders. So yeah, there's no pressure for that team and that's good. I don't think many fans would seriously expect medals from Lithuania even with 100%.
To me so far it's only Grigonis and Lekavicius as a loss. R. Giedraitis has been non factor and Ulanovas is out for ages now. It's funny how some fellows are mad that there's no Ulanovas. It's just a continuation of his retirement. How many chances that 32yo Ulanovas will want to play after another heavy EL season? And will he even be needed much with even better Brazdeikis, Sedekerskis and panning out 24yo Sirvydis at 3? Come one, let's just move on, the guy played in previous decade last time...
The way I see it, it's a good non pressure WC where we can go with some new pieces and fight hard with fresh legs not being too anxious. At least it's a good chance to give roles for such players as Sedekerskis, Sirvydis, Tubelis, D. Giedraitis and even to test some Rubstavicius/Marciulionis, get their feet vet. That will give us some benefits even for 2024, let alone longer term.
There's no doubt we have more chances to reach semis in Olympics, than to reach it in 2023. The way I see it we may have very serious team in 2024.
Sabonis in complete prime,
Jokubaitis and
Brazdeikis at that point should basically be elite pieces (someone calculated that Brazdeikis' impact in the second half of the season in EL was similar to Mike Jame's impact). Hopefully
Grigonis comes back for maybe his last NT campaign, in the form of 12-14ppg kinda scorer. Very deep bench with JV and multiple EL level players. Timing is slightly unfavorable for LTU (I predict that Rubstavicius will already be pretty much elite SG in 2025, which obviously changes a lot, but not exactly there in 2024 yet), but I think there's no doubt that in very small tournament as Olympics we'll have a decent chance to get to the semis. In WC we need to get out of the group, play well in the next one and beat at least Greece, and then to beat Serbia in 4finals. In Olympics you play well in the group, get 4finals opponent and if you beat it, you're in semis. Much more simple path, if you avoid death group.
Normantas didn't stand out in a single game against Zalgiris. He was completely shut off compared to his regular season's numbers.