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2023 Lithuanian NT

  • Thread starter Thread starter Straight forward2
  • Start date Start date
It is what it is. Last Olympic cycle 2017-2021 we had the worst talent pool ever in the NT history. This cycle we have more talent compared to previous, but very dis-balanced roster which still lacks some important components. So this cycle doesn't look very optimistic. I don't think we will win medals in upcoming 2 seasons. I think we should try to build defensive identity cause currently we don't have enough talent to win offensively.

But our future (let's say starting with 26/27 and going further), IMO, is great. Great even to the point that we can be as good again as in 90-00's and potentially even better.

FOA, there's Buzelis. He can be absolutely huge. He literally has superstar's upside. The only player who had that previously was A. Sabonis. No-one else had it. Literally. So can be a game changer that we didn't see for a long time or ever.

Second, there's Jokubaitis, Murauskas and Indrusaitis as complete players who have star's potential (complete players).

Thirdly, say, such guy as Rubstavicius will be a heck of a scorer. I have no almost no doubt he will be better player than Grigonis f.e. He is much more deadly slasher, observes contact, has killers mentality. I could even argue that he may become complete player potentially, but Indrusaitis is more athletic, explosive and smoother version of Rubstavicius so I take him firstly.

Then, we have great role players as Sedekerskis, Tubelis, Krivas, D. Giedraitis, Sirvydis, A. Marciulionis, Brazdeikis and so on. I think it's obvious that not only our starting line-up my improve radically, but our bench will be deeper and more talented then it used to be (remembering Juskevicius, Milaknis, Gecevicius, Kariniauskas, Bendzius and other meh players making NT in 10's...)

My projection is that we can have starting 5 of 5 complete players in 2029: Sabonis, Murauskas, Buzelis, Indrusaitis, Jokubaitis. That would be first occasion of such in NT basketball history.

Why I'm high on Marciulionis? Cause he can play D and he can facilitate. When you have say Buzelis and Murauskas on the court (all around offensive beasts, nothing less), you don't need scoring from 1. You already have enough and more.

To some extent in Lithuania many fans still don't realize what we are getting from ready Buzelis and Murauskas. Buckets all day long all possible ways.

This OC is screwed more or less (even though I as devoted fan, always hope for surprise). But next 2. Watch out.
 
You need shooting always in todays basketball. Modern basketball is going C must be able to make 3pointers.

Guards is out question dont just make open shots,make shots after dribble and so on.

Goodluck believing in non shooting PG how game is played today.

What type players works with best of best players like Giannis/Doncic? yeah shooting players.

Every player that cant make open shots is bad fit with Domas in his next peak 5years. The less non shooters NT will have the better Domas can be.



2027 i dont care.Nobody knows what will happen in 2 years forget 5 . All i care is 2023-2024 now.
 
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Brown 32%, Shroder 32% in Eurobasket. Shooting was far from the main things in EB for them. The way I see it, we will have great players in all positions, great shooters at 2 (Rubstavicius, Indrusaitis), dominant 3 who can do it all (Buzelis), dominant all around 4 (Murauskas) and good finishing centers as Sabonis/Tubelis/Krivas. What I need from Jokubaitis/Marciulionis is elite facilitation in the first place. They will score some too, but that's not the priority, specially going deeper in 20's. As for 23/24, yeah, we should give Domas some shooters, but we don't have them ATM unfortunately...Let's just grind defensively then...
 
Your fantasy prediction about 2027 i dont need your own biased horoscope basketball prediction.

Here we talking mostly about men 2023 NT.

All those Buzelis,Murauskas,Marciulionis,Indrusaitis have nothing to do with main 9 playoofs men rotation in 2023-2024.

I dont ask 45% shooter.When i say shooting i mean players that will make open shots after double teams our bigs is getting alot in fiba.

If we taking 1-2 non shooters it must be very important defensive pieces.


Shroder is bad shooter yes ,but he is very fast even compared to nba athletes (by far fastest player in entire eurobasket). Schroder would very bad fit with Domas crazy,wild non shooter. Shroder himself needs shooters around him and Germany 2022 in most cases built team like that.Wagner,Thieman type bigs was making long shots.

Domas need stable smart Pg that can make open shoots and give him the ball in right positions Brown would be perfect fit.

Nobody was going under Brown picks like teams went under Shroder/Jokubaitis picks. If opponents always going under it means that player is bad shooter in my book.I trust teams scouting/preparation.

Role players shooting wide opens shots mostly ,when playmakers like Brown/Evans shooting contested 3ponters that not the same shots to look just at %.
 
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All I'm saying you have false imagination that NT upside will fall on position 1 generally. It won't cause we will have bigger talent in other positions compared to 10's. We will have guys in other positions who basically can do it all. That's why I'm saying I need ability to run the team, to make the right passes, the facilitate, to be glue guys from our point guards in the first place. Scoring power won't be an issue. An issue will be to find a way to utilize all talent optimally. When you do have a lot of good pieces, facilitators become very important, and chemistry becomes very important. When you have say Indrusaitis 2, Buzelis 3, Murauskas 4 and Sabonis 5 they all need the ball. And in ISO situations all 4 are generally great players, and potentially literally unstoppable (Domas is not stoppable in ISO situations). So I don't need much scoring from 1. I need facilitation. You have that idea that we need absolutely DOMINANT 1 to have success, but that's because you don't understand what kind of gifred players are coming. Sure, currently we would benefit a lot having a guard who can drop 16pts and make 6-7 dimes, more or less something like L. Brown. But in the future it won't be a problem. We will just need elite facilitation from 1 generally. Besides, Jokubaitis offensively won't be worse, but probably better than L. Brown.

21yo Jokubaitis was as 9.2ppg, 4apg kinda player in 2022. In 2025 these numbers my sky rock to some 15/7. I think even in OG 2024, if we make it, we are talking about 12/5 kinda PG most likely with elite decisions.

Your problem that you don't see all the picture what's coming (as always). We will have more than enough individual talent. The question will be - what's the best way to put it together. And there's where I ask something what Jokubaitis/Marciulionis are best at - precise decision making, facilitation. To some degree, there will be tournaments when Marciulionis will be even more important most likely. Cause we will have plenty of scoring options, and probably 2 ways beast Marciulionis will be more needed than offensively more talented Jokubaitis. But it's all good problems to have anyway.

If you want jacking off threes PG, take Velicka. He shoots 41.5% in bundesliga, and 40.9% in FIBA Euro Cup.
 
OK, so what made Kings the best offensive team in NBA? 3 things:

ISO scorer (Fox), Sabonis, shooting wings.

Well, obviously we won't have such player as Fox, but (I'll get later to it)...:) But let's speculate for a minute whenever NT will ever utilize Sabonis to the fullest.

ATM, the problem is clear. We have only Grigonis as a shooter. Our forwards are non offensive and limited in terms of shooting (Uke, Butkevicius). Jokubaitis is not a great shooter too, but Fox also is not a great shooter. What Fox does is getting inside super well, creating all sorts of problems. The good news that Jokubaitis is also a strong slasher and great decision maker. We seen some flashes of good chemistry between Jokubaitis and Sabonis last summer and that is promising.

Now can we get shooting wings? Well, I don't see anyone as good as Kevin Huerter coming, but there's some good pieces coming.

FOA, Rubstavicius. I have no doubt he'll be terrific shooter and he's brilliant off ball player. He is a better off ball shooter even than Grigonis (well, he will be). He utilizes the space perfectly, constantly moving without the ball and he doesn't need much space and time to set his shot. Perfect piece around Domas. (Later on, I think Indrusaitis will be more or less similar, with more ISO game, but Domas and Indrusaitis won't play many tournaments together duo to age difference).


Murauskas showed this season that he can be very effective off ball scorer/shooter. It was a surprise cause I always imagined him as ballhog, ISO scorer. And he has that a lot in him. Nevertheless this season he shows how flexible he is and he embraced that off ball shooter's role for Lietkabelis willingly and PRO. Murauskas will be able to do all sorts of things, including spot on off the ball movement/shooting. Good fit, even if Murauskas himself probably would like to be a guy with the ball more. The good news that he can adapt to different situations.

And then off course Buzelis. He is super versatile and essentially team player so I hope we can find proper fit of playing Domas centric BB and allowing Buzelis to be creator and one of the main protagonists offensively as well. In other words, in Buzelis you have a piece that you can build around at 3 as point forward. Can dominant point forward and point center co-exist in positive way? I sure hope so. I think here the good news most LTU players are naturally willing to make adjustments to the benefit of the team. My optimism comes from the fact that Buzelis is showing some unguardable catch and shoot presence here and there. If Buzelis turns out to be really reliable shooters with his 6'10 size, look out. We would see plenty of open shots. But then again, we can't reduce Buzelis to off ball kinda player. He's too gifted for that. Once he will be ready, it will be huge science how to utilize Domas and Buzelis together. Nevertheless, it should be great chemistry hopefully as Buzelis can do it all - Shoot, handle, drive, cut, facilitate.

Sirvydis is another perfect fir for Domas. Sirvydis is off the ball catch and shoot kind wing. He's a good cutter too, so I think they would find pretty good chemistry. As well as D. Giedraitis should be a nice fit too. And if Lelevicius can fix his accuracy (accuracy is the only problem I have with him), he's absolutely brilliant fit next Domas. I see all these 3 players as a role players more, even if Lelevicius has a chance to be nearly complete player if he can improve his shooting game.

Guys like Rubstavicius, Sirvydis, D. Giedraitis, Lelevicius seems to be very good fit next to Domas. But the long term key will be to find the right chemistry between 3 main pieces Sabonis, Buzelis, Murauskas. All are guys that you can basically build around and how we are gonna use them will be very interesting to see (Jokubaitis is also there, but he can adjust to anything, he has 100% BB IQ).

But the problem is that for 2023 only Grigonis is available as ready and made shooter. Maybe we can expect some-one from D.Giedraitis/Sirvydis making the roster. But none of these yet can snatch bigger and more impactful role. Rubstavicius, Murauskas, Buzelis, Lelevicius still are too raw. The problem is that Iggy is pretty horrible fit cause he can't shoot and he's more effective with the ball in his hands than vise versa. I would use Iggy in the second line-up, specially in the moments Sabonis is resting.

Most likely we'll have to rely on Jokubaitis, Grigonis, Ulanovas, Kuzminskas as those who takes shots after Sabonis' passes and we simply don't have enough of reliable shooting power which will limit the ability to utilize Sabonis to the fullest.

I would say that probably Jokubaitis' development and the addition of Ulanovas are our biggest reserves and improvements compared to 2022. Hopefully the addition of say Sedekerskis, Tubelis, D. Giedraitis would make a little impact too, but it won't be all that much impactful.

This Olympic cycle remains very problematic. We have very good prospects, but they still need couple of more years and then the picture of NT may change radically. But as 2023-2024 goes we have pretty good, but not good enough to truly make noise, kinda team.
 
Straight forward said:
And, no, you are not right. Some rookies fail, some rookies not. That's all. It's only your imagination that all rookies can't shoot. That's because you only think about such occasions. Macijauskas 2003m 42,3%, Jasaitis 2005 47.6%, Gecevicius in 2010 shot 36%, Pocius 46,4%, Seibutis 50%, Juskevicius 2014 48,1%, Brazdeikis 2022 36%, Jokubaitis 27.8% (still twice better than freakin' Giedraitis).
Click to expand...

Rookies of recent tournaments:

2022 Jokubaitis, Brazdeikis (succeeded), Zemaitis, Zukauskas, Echodas (too shirt sample)
2019 R. Giedraitis (failed or too short sample)
2017 Ulanovas (succeeded)
2016 Grigonis, Kariniauskas (failed)
2015 Milaknis (succeeded), Gailius, Sabonis (too short sample), Lekavicius (failed)
2014 Juskevicius (succeeded), Vasiliauskas (failed)
2013 Motiejunas (succeeded), Kuzminskas (relatively succeeded)
2012 Kavaliauskas (succeded)
2011 Valanciunas (succeeded)
2010 Pocius (succeeded), Seibutis (succeeded), Gecevicius (succeeded), Klimavicius and Andriuskevicius (too short sample)

From those rookies who had meaningful role (at least decent amount of minutes and showing up in several games), I have 12 succeed, 4 failed. Many simply played too little in their rookie seasons to estimate.

So last 10 seasons showed that there's two or three times more chances for rookies to succeed than fail in the NT. And there was no tournament without at least a single rookie.

2019 happened to be the only tournament when not a single rookie got a meaningful role...
 
im talking just about shooting. Thats what is worst element in first tournament for players,other basketball elements more less players can do.

And shooting not in games where NT was leading by 25pts when no pressure.

2022 Jokubaitis couldnt make shoots, Brazdeikis made shots
2019-2021 R.Giedraitis couldnt make shoots
2017 no rookies made shots
2016 Grigonis couldnt make no shots,Sabonis couldnt make no shots
2015 Lekavicius couldnt make no shots . Im not calling 29 old Milaknis and 5 season euroleague veteran ale rookie :)
2014 Jukevicius made shots
2013 Motiejunas,Kuzminskas couldnt make no shoots. Dmo had one good game but not tournament


So the only players that really made shots in first tournament as real rookies was Brazdeikis and Juskevicius in last 10 years.


My point was expect that rookie will come and first tournament will make shots thats very unlikely. They can provide energy,maybe defence but not shooting.
 
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Again, not entirely true.

Brazdeikis shot the ball well 2022, Jokubaitis didn't entirely failed either
Ulanovas shot the ball well in 2017
Milaknis shot the ball well in 2015
Juskevicius shot the ball well 2014
All thee Pocius, Seibutis, Gecevicius shot well in 2010
Jasaitis shot the ball well 2005
Macijauskas 2003
Kaukenas shot the ball well 2001
Siskauskas shot basically decently 2000

Some rookies come and shoot the ball well. And it's not that super rare.
 
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R. Giedraitis is also EL vet, but he can't shoot in NT. Nor Lukauskis could in 2009. Age is not equivalent to mental toughness, not all the time, it is trickier than you project.
 
Maksvytis still sees D-Mo in the NT. Classy :D Let's have another complete black hole defensively...

It's good that D-Mo himself understands he has nothing to give.
 
OK, I will say this:

There's a good chance that Tubelis, Sedekerskis (2 defensive bigs) + Buzelis, Rubstavicius//Indrusaitis, Jokubaitis (three perimeter scorers) may be the best line-up since Javtokas, Songaila, Siskauskas, Macijauskas, Jasikevicius

I'm a big believer in contemporary trend that you need defensive bigs who can play D, pass and occasionally hit open three (that's enough) and give all offensive tools for 3 perimeter players who can do it all. That's deadliest recipe in current game, IMO.
 
3 biggest enigma's of LTU BB regarding PRO level readiness:

Buzelis, Tubelis, Sirvydis

(To a lesser extent - Lukosius and Marciulionis (one as offensive all arounder, other as defensive stopper))

All guys play abroad, so no surprise.
 
Good talk with Balciunas.

So France and 2 more best European teams of WC will qualify to Olympics. It is extremely hard to do it cause there's plenty of quality teams now. Maybe the positive thing that it seems closer than ever. Even stacked teams as Serbia can't establish certain domination. Most games in knock out stage are last seconds games basically. So FIBA is really wild ATM and it's very hard to project things, except that Spain will find ways to take one of the spots :D

The news on Buzelis that Maksvytis wants him to test. From Balciunas answer I understood that there's more chances to see him in main NT camp than U20.

Interesting that Balciunas has in mind some sort of projects that could test such players as Sivydis, Buzelis and so on, but he didn't specify what he meant. Some sort of pre-camp tournament?

I totally agree with Ceponis that Domas and JV should be separated as much as possible and the game endings may even be played without both of them. It's time to openly mock this madness pf playing them together, having ridiculously predictable offense and absolute garbage D. I'm stunned that this shit actually continues for about 8 years (since JV-D-Mo duel in 2014) and LTU critics like idiots never openly expressed that it's madness. This shit has to stop. JV should be glued to the bench at the end of the games hell of high water. And we might even want to finish games with some Sedekerskis/Ulanovas at the front if we have some thing like Garuba at 5 in opposition.

It's funny that media still raises question- will Brazdeikis and Buzelis can play together? I mean, my god, wasn't so hard to realize that Iggy was "naturalized" only because he played for Canada. None of Buzelis, Indrusaitis, or Buzelis' brother (another enigma, how good he will be?) ever played for foreign country and they have LTU passports. No problem at all.

It's interesting that NT planning to camp in Taiwan. That's a nice gesture.

From Balciunas I understood that all players agreed to come back to NT after 2022. But Grigonis is big question now. I feel like he will skip it, but hopefully not. Then Ulanovas decision will be important, but he has great connection with Maksvytis and I think will be in if healthy. Then Maksvytis has to deal with Sedekerskis. Basically last summer he "cut" him. He has to let him openly know that NT needs it.

https://www.delfi.lt/video/laidos/k...r-ar-isvysime-rinktineje-buzeli.d?id=92066345
 
OK, so we well know that we recently had a pretty trashy shooting team:

2017 EB 13th 35%
2019 WC 28th 27.4%
2022 EB 16th 33.8%

With all the massive wave of prospects coming and emerging I thought that we still have an issue with shooting. But now I can see that this problem may be solved, even if Kulboka's positions staggered a bit and Sirvydis seems more like role player.

The reason are 4 players that I think will be starting material long term - Jokubaitis, Rubstavicius, Buzelis, Murauskas.

Jokubaitis EL career threes 44.4%, despite this seasons' slump. ACB career 43%.
Rubstavicius shoots 50% in LKL. Great off ball and on ball shooting.
Buzelis shows huge promise in terms of shooting being 6'10.
Murauskas 53% in LKL. He won't be terrific shooter, but capable.

When these 4 will start competing for the main roles in the NT, Lithuania should be much better shooting team.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIeF8mDSNZE


Luka is basketball genius.No double team,no diffrent defensive coverages wont work and no human alive can defend 1 vs 1 such smart,skilled and huge body in his athletic peak. The men has seen it all millions times. Just switch everything with everybody and let him play 1 vs 1 all game long and hopefully he will get tired.

LTU eurobasket 2022 game when 5 minutes to go ltu nt got 5-6pts lead Slovenia timeout and from that point Doncic was doing same shit like in that video and had the ball every single attack.

Every little defensive mistake and Tobey has layup or slovenian shooter wide open shoot in corner.Our average players wont in some miracle way outsmart Doncic doing defensive changes.He will outsmart our players 100%.

Dont double team him just switch everything with no big complications and make him jump shooter.Let Doncic score 40pts and leave others players cold and just watchers not participants in offence.

Every time Doncic goes 45-60pts his team looses or barely wins. Luka teams wins by double digits when his teammates scores alot and Doncic goes for 15+ assists.
 
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