All time NT

[auris1]

http://bcneptunas.lt/images/darbenaiii.jpg

This is a picture from Maksvytis home town 3on3 tournament ,right ?

[auris1]

Thank you for your insights Mindozas! I've always wondered about some of the more famous Sabonis/Marciulionis generation of players and lacked a clear sense of their basketball skills. This makes me wonder whether Jovaisa deserves a mention here since he was a fairly important player for Zalgiris and, at one point, played for Soviet Union NT (where only the best of the best competed in international tournaments). He also played for Team Lietuva in 1992, but was way past his prime then. I would be curious to get a sense of how he compared to, say, Siskauskas in his prime, taking into account that Lithuania's borders were closed at the time and he couldn't sign a contract with a foreign team.

I am not Mindozas , by no means , but maybe my insight can help you too .
If you care to watch any game from that time (early 80 ), that might be as shocking as to watching black and white movie for the very first time if you are young and used to them FX as given .
As for example - i was re watching some Zalgiris _CSKA game ,where golden Zalgiris was to win the game , and lets say ,with 1 minutes to go Zalgiris is leading by 6 or 7 points . So i knew the final result ,still ... You know exactly how this game would be played nowadays ,right ? Foul after foul , free throws one after another . And nothing like that happened . CSKA players were running like a silly rabbits while Zalgiris players were passing the ball around and not a single foul was committed .
So , if some people can consider Frank Lubin as a candidate to be included for this team , i might as well to say that Jovaisa is one of them good guys too .
Two books that comes to my mind for you to read is M.Paulauskas and Jovaisa autobiographies .
Anyways , why do i think he should be considered ? Because he was playing type of the game no one was playing at the time . He was Siskauskas way before people could understood importance of such . As in example above. Different times .
He could score , he had immensely long hands good for steals and to defend taller players , and most importantly , he was smart on the court . Make no mistake , he was our best player from time when Paulauskas retired and Sabonis came to Zalgiris .
Another thing is that he played until he was like 40?
No one before him went that far , where being 30 was like death sentence . In soviet times , being 30 plus was like being 38/39 plus in NBA nowadays . Very rare .
So , in the end , Jovaisa was great at his peak . And he was good for another 15 years afterwards . He is in our hall of fame , that is for sure . Maybe we should keep this topic such as well.

[Mindozas]

As for example - i was re watching some Zalgiris _CSKA game ,where golden Zalgiris was to win the game , and lets say ,with 1 minutes to go Zalgiris is leading by 6 or 7 points . So i knew the final result ,still ... You know exactly how this game would be played nowadays ,right ? Foul after foul , free throws one after another . And nothing like that happened . CSKA players were running like a silly rabbits while Zalgiris players were passing the ball around and not a single foul was committed .

I don't know which game you're talking about, but it might be cause back in those days there was a rule - if you were fouled, you could either shoot FTs, either just continue possesion, so for defending team, which was losing, there was no point in making a foul, obviously none were goin' to shoot FTs, so they had to try to steal the ball

[Shawshank]

If we are choosing best lithuanian national team players of all time Kalnietis should be higher than Chomicius no doubt.But as player individually Chomicius in his prime or Kalnietis is his prime i have to say i would choose Chomicius.But saying that how Mantas ir playing for our national team i would find a place for him in top 12 players of all time.Something with Mantas and NT ,when he is with Lietuva jersey he is playing basketball as one of the best pg in entire Europe.And it happend not once,not twice so he would have my vote in making all time LTU nt team over Chomicius.Mantas would be my backup up PG.

But in clubs competions Valdemaras was better player and fantastic defender,maybe even the best lithuanias perimeter defender of all time.

[auris1]

I don't know which game you're talking about, but it might be cause back in those days there was a rule - if you were fouled, you could either shoot FTs, either just continue possesion, so for defending team, which was losing, there was no point in making a foul, obviously none were goin' to shoot FTs, so they had to try to steal the ball

Very good point , I completely forgot about that .
But then again , with the twist of modern attitude added to these kind of situations, then the loosing team could have still fouled as soon as possible to stop the clock ,hoping either for free throws (as they do now ) or to force a turnover ,even if the clock was reset in the next possession . Rinse and repeat .

[Mindozas]

If we are choosing best lithuanian national team players of all time Kalnietis should be higher than Chomicius no doubt.But as player individually Chomicius in his prime or Kalnietis is his prime i have to say i would choose Chomicius.But saying that how Mantas ir playing for our national team i would find a place for him in top 12 players of all time.Something with Mantas and NT ,when he is with Lietuva jersey he is playing basketball as one of the best pg in entire Europe.And it happend not once,not twice so he would have my vote in making all time LTU nt team over Chomicius.Mantas would be my backup up PG.

But in clubs competions Valdemaras was better player and fantastic defender,maybe even the best lithuanias perimeter defender of all time.

These criterias are really hard to measure. I mean some players made little impact in national team like such, but some made huge impact on our basketball overall, but never really had a chance to play for NT due to occupation or played very little. The same Modestas Paulauskas was one of the best players of his generation, had NBA offer in 19-20yo. Then we had Stepas Butautas, another legendary player, who was huge in his time, leader of Soviet NT. Both of them made huge impact on our basketball overall, were idols of upcoming generation, lot of kids started to play bball thnx to them, also both coached. Before WWII we had players like Feliksas Kriauciunas, who not only was among the best players in Europe during his days, twice European champ, even coach of 1937 NT, but he made so much for our bball to be alive at all. He was one of the pioneers of bball in our country. The same legendary Pranas Lubinas came later. Judging on how good they were during their playin' time, all of them should be easily in our all-time roster. But again, it's hard to evaluate the talent, while game itself made enormous step forward, so current generation has huge advantage here

[LuDux]

Games
1 1 Jasikevicius
2 2 Javtokas
4 3 Maciulis
3 4 Ksystof
8 5 Kalnietis
15 13 Valanciunas
23 20 Kuzminskas

Minutes
1 1 Jasikevicius
2 2 Kalnietis
7 3 Maciulis
3 4 Stombergas
4 5 Karnisovas
15 11 Valanciunas
28 24 Kuzmisnkas

Points
1 1 Jasikevicius
2 2 Karnisovas
5 3 Kalnietis
3 4 Kleiza
4 5 Stombergas
11 8 Valanciunas
10 10 Maciulis
26 24 Kuzminskas

Rebounds
4 1 Valanciunas
1 2 A.Sabonis
2 3 Kleiza
3 4 Javtokas
5 5 Ksystof
11 8 Maciulis
18 18 Kuzminskas

Assists
1 1 Jasikevicius
2 2 Kalnietis
3 3 Marciulionis
4 4 Karnisovas
5 5 Siskauskas
9 8 Maciulis

Steals
2 1 Maciulis
1 2 Jasikevicius
3 3 Siskauskas
4 4 Stombergas
5 5 Karnisovas
41 11 9 Kalnietis
22 28 22 Valanciunas

3pointers made
1 1 Jasikevicius
2 2 Jasaitis
3 3 Siskauskas
4 4 Kalnietis
6 5 Kalnietis
23 18 Kuzminskas
24 21 Juskevicius

[LuDux]

2p% (need to be in top half (36 out of 73) among all players in attempts)
1 66.7 Adomaitis
2 61.5 Petravicius
3 60.3 Valanciunas
4 59.6 Macijauskas
5 59.5 Karnisovas
(all time % 52.9)
34 43.6 D.Sabonis
35 42.5 Maciulis
36 41.6 Lukminas

3p% (37/73)
1 48.4 Kaukenas
2 48.2 Juskevicius
3 46.8 Darjus
4 45.3 Macijauskas
5 44.8 Jasaitis
(all time % 37.5)
35 27.0 Motiejunas
36 23.8 Gustas
37 16.1 Grigonis

1p% (37/73)
1 86.9 Macijauskas
2 86.3 Seibutis
3 85.9 Songaila
4 83.3 Jankunas
5 83.3 Adomaitis
(all time % 73.8)
35 E.Zukauskas 53.8
36 Maskoliunas 50.0
37 Javtokas 41.3

"True Shooting" (need to be in top half among all players in points scored)
1 69.3 Adomaitis
2 68.0 Macijauskas
3 66.1 Juskevicius
4 65.4 Karnisovas
5 63.6 Valanciunas.
(all time % 57.2)
34 51.8 Einikis
35 49.7 Gustas
36 46.9 Lukauskis

[Straight forward]

Boy, watching highlights of 1995EB final and that zone defence of Lith was horrible Kurtinaitis was sleeping at D all the time And overall it's hard to imagine such unorganized defence these days, it would just be impossible. BB really progressed in terms of preparation, tactics and discipline.

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

[Hepcat]

The overall play of Team Lietuva and other European teams has improved enormously since the mid-nineties. Not only are players much faster and more athletic these days, but they're far more disciplined and sophisticated defensively.

Moreover Team Lietuva in particular had very little depth back in the 1992 to 1995 period. There wasn't much help on the bench for the starters. That's why I raised the question in this thread six years ago:

https://www.interbasket.net/forums/s...m-Lietuva-2012!

I suspect that only four players from the 1995 team could crack next summer's lineup for the World Championship. Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis would still be part of the starting lineup, with Rimas Kurtinaitis and Artūras Karnišovas being the only other players good enough to crack the present lineup.

[Straight forward]

I suspect that only four players from the 1995 team could crack next summer's lineup for the World Championship. Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis would still be part of the starting lineup, with Rimas Kurtinaitis and Artūras Karnišovas being the only other players good enough to crack the present lineup.

Nope. Disagree. Those fellows were badly coached and NT really went for very unorganized zone defence just to keep Sabonis stand in the middle, but overall those teams were waaaaaayyyyyyy more talented than today. Aside those 4 studs you mention there was veteran Chomicius and we already discussed that he may belong to all time NT, than peaking Krapikas wasn't worse player than some Juskevicius for example, he was a good defender, all around player, than young Timinskas and young Einikis. That 1995 EB team was way better than today's team is a no brainer. I mean come on...Marciulionis alone would tear apart all our current backourt with one hand and there's also Kurtinaitis next to him. Now we have Kalnieitis as our best guard? I take 1995EB roster anytime.

[Straight forward]

Watched 1998 WC USA-Lithuania a little bit and I'm changing my all time NT starting 5. I was surprised how athletic, agile and aggressive Karnisovas was, and how tall and big he was. He surely could play PF today, even in 90's could. At 204cm he had no problem penetrating against USA athletic players. I'm thinking peaking Karnisovas was surely NBA material. Also he was even more explosive scorer than Kleiza, and much more smarter and all around off course. So here's my 5, with all high IQ and versatile players. Best of all time, IMO:

Jasikevicius
Marciulionis
Siskauskas
Karnisovas
Sabonis

[usagre]

@Straight Forward

I saw a lot of Karnishovas in his NCAA days being a Big East fan. He was a phenomenal long range shooter a really good player. The problem was that in the early ‘90’s only the best of the best in European prospects really got a legitimate opportunity to make it in the NBA. So it was a lot harder for him.

[Straight forward]

@Straight Forward

I saw a lot of Karnishovas in his NCAA days being a Big East fan. He was a phenomenal long range shooter a really good player. The problem was that in the early ‘90’s only the best of the best in European prospects really got a legitimate opportunity to make it in the NBA. So it was a lot harder for him.

Good point. And also he was a bit soft and hated contact as a prospect I read which also influenced leaving him undrafted. But watching prime Karnisovas at 1998, there's a complete player, even physically.

[LuDux]

@Straight Forward

I saw a lot of Karnishovas in his NCAA days being a Big East fan. He was a phenomenal long range shooter a really good player. The problem was that in the early ‘90’s only the best of the best in European prospects really got a legitimate opportunity to make it in the NBA. So it was a lot harder for him.

I think I saw his debut with Statyba on TV. The way I remember their uniforms were bright yellow and his face was bright red. Also his head looked disproportionately small compared to long legs and arms. I think he missed dunk. So basically I remember spidery yellow figure with red head hanging on the rim