2023 Lithuanian NT

[Shawshank]

Dinosour expert was telling me with Butkevicius NT plays 4 vs 5 in offence.His defence is just solid,but only versus right matchups

I told him look at his not scared eyes in his rookie 2019 tournament.That dude has character of captain,such type can help in those emotional Nt games


I can say same things now look at Normantas tough eyes.That dude can help in pressure type games.

Normantas may get 5 fauls in 10minutes,but he will put his body in front with no doubts even if Giannis type will come and try to buldozer his way through multiple defenders

Butkevicxius,Normantas never will be Siskauskas or Macijauskas.But can they be M.Zukauskas,Krapikas defensive type role players ? yes.

[Straight forward]

Yes, turnovers and 5 fouls in 10 minutes is exactly what NT needs...Butkevicius totally dominated in LKL playoffs before making NT in 2019. Super impressive 21,1eff in PO. That year he actually had his best LKL season with 16eff per game. Normantas so far only showed you the eyes that you liked, that's all. 7,5eff in playoffs, 11eff in the season. He has been trash in LKL playoffs and some key mistakes in do or die game.

[Hepcat]

Hepcat simply sneaks in and checks the stats and has no clue what so ever about actual player's level.

'

I'm not a masochist. Checking on Dovydas Giedraitis' "progress" once a week is about as much disappointment as I can handle.



Nonetheless, pickings at guard look pretty sparse for Team Lietuva again. Let's see, at PG there are:

Rokas Jokubaitis (though still a backup Barcelona)
Lukas Lekavičius (though his lack of size is a liability on defence)
Margiris Normantas (maybe but then who else?)
Arnas Velička (emergency replacement)

Then at SG there are:

Marius Grigonis
Tomas Dimša (defensive specialist)
Matas Jogėla

And at SG/SF:

Rokas Giedraitis
Ignas Brazdeikis
Martynas Varnas

Anybody else?

[LuDux]

only showed you the eyes that you liked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4vyiCG83vY

[Straight forward]

Sedekerskis IN. In the highlights he looks like NBA player. I think he will be better Kalinic and he may have sort of Lucic or Nigel Hayes career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fidg5tLV7gQ&t=3s&ab_channel=MickeyMickeal

Now let's see if Sabonis and Brazdeikis will join.

[Shawshank]

LTU NT head coach said: There is less than 50% that Domas will play,but until there is hope we gonna wait


if head coach says its less than 50% such diplomatic answer is clear to me what that means

[Straight forward]

The way I see LTU players depth chart (not being super strict in order, but overall marking true NT material, IMO):

Domas, JV, Grigonis, Jokubaitis, Ulanovas, Brazdeikis, R. Giedraitis, Motiejunas, Sedekerskis, Butkevicius, Kuzminskas, Lekavicius, Gudaitis, Dimsa, D. Giedraitis

To me these players are legitimate EL players at least. I seen them playing quality minutes as legitimate role players. We can ask questions whenever Tubelis, Kulboka, Sirvydis and some others are EL material or not yet, but the fact is we don't know. Today krepsinis.net posted that D. Giedraitis is 26...how? Who are better other than those who I mentioned above? Hypothetical players who never played in EL (let alone playing well in knock out stage) and never played entire 4th quarter for Zalgiris in the most important game of the season? Come on...We see Birutis barely cracking rotations in LKL finals.

Another thing...Susinskas, Jogela, E. Zukauskas, Olisevicius are better than Azuolas Tubelis...OMG...people are so naive and so lost in terms of evaluation. Current Tubelis would be among LKL MVPs playing for clubs like Vilkai, Juventus, Neptunas or even Rytas. There's literally no players of his profile in LKL, except Smits. No-one would contain him. I don't know if he's definitely reached EL level yet, but there's no doubt he's better than scrubs mentioned above. I actually have nearly zero doubt that he's already 5th best center in the country after Domas, JV, D-Mo, Gudaitis. He would go hardcore on Echodas and I predict he would prevail.

LTU journalists, coaches and others are as usual lost. No ability to make those ranking properly. Last year they put Iggy at 12th spot. While he was 4th in scoring in EB.

Are Echodas, Radzevicius, Normantas, Birutis, Orelikas, Bendzius, (Kulboka, Sirvydis maybe, IDK, not sure) are better than D. Giedraitis and Tubelis? Fuck no. Specially such fundamentally sound and already proven at PROs guard as Giedraitis. How the best perimeter defender and terrific decision maker can bet so low?

As I understand they won't even include Rubstavicius and Marciulionis to the top 50... Speechless...

My summary - most people can't rank players. Maybe some of the guys can, but the average of votes makes this shit really out of hand.

I think the depth chart today is this:

Joku, Lukas, Marciulionis
Grigonis, Brazdeikis, R. Giedraitis, Dimsa, D. Giedraitis, Rubstavicius, Normantas
Ulanovas, Brazdeikis, Butkevicius, Radzevicius/Sirvydis
Sedekerskis, Kuzminskas, Tubelis
Sabonis, Valanciunas, Gudaitis/Motiejunas

[Straight forward]

And students NT...OMG...sadder than sad...The last testimony of the great fall of Lithuanian basketball which basically ends with 96 (Domas not inclueded) and 97 generation scrubs.

Not a single...not even close...no NT material at all...Beručka is the best player out there...Amazingly poor...

In few years, starting with 98 and 99 generations such players as Jogela, Velicka, Masiulis, I. Sargiunas could theoretically make students NT and that will be an obvious sign of LTU basketball renesaunse.

https://twitter.com/ltu_basketball/status/1671097856235634688/photo/1

[Straight forward]

Really hope that they will broadcast Students NT versus Reserve NT live...or that event would be open to fans. "NT memeber Zemaitis" vs Maciulionis would be priceless. Tubelis (if he's somehow there which I don't see) going against...who exactly? Would be very very interesting.

[Straight forward]

Once Rutenis Paulauskas was a nonsense per minute machine in one of O dangau! podcasts...now finally they found proper substitution for him - Urbonas...For real, you won't find sloppier mouth in the whole planet...unbelievable. Kariniauskas for him is truer point guard than Jokubaitis, a guy with high slow dribbling, hesitant passing and slow decision making...Then he thinks Neptunas would take down top teams of NCAA teams, the ones that have Zions, Boncheros and such...He mentions Galdikas as glorious force that would stop those guys...OMG, Urbonas is unstoppable nonsense machine, so provincial, so narrow minded, incredible...Good riddance for Juventus.

R. Jarutis thinks that if Greece will have EB 2022 roster in WC 2023, Lithuania doesn't stand a chance. OK, it's logical to say that we would be huge underdogs, but couple of interesting things. Greeks beat Croatia only by 4 points. The same Croatia which beat Estonia only by 3 points, Ukraine by 5 points and lost to Finland. Also Greece defeated Czech Rep only by 6 points. The same Czecks which lost against Poland -15, and Finland -10. Also Greece obviously lost to Germany -11, which we were very close to beat and lost only by few last possessions accidents. In my opinion we would stand a certain chance even with B+ team (- Sabonis and Grigonis) against fully packed Greece. Obvious underdogs, but Greece wasn't entirely convincing in EB, specially that they faced only one truly strong team Germany in the tournament (with all respect to streaky Italy) and they lost it. To some some extent Calathes (if he's there), Sloukas will be one more year older...

Also, It's absolutely fantastic that Marciulionis included to reserve NT. I listen to podcasts and people really sleeping on him. Many thinks that well he kinda struggles in NCAA, he's out of the map. In my opinion he will open people's eyes. I'm almost sure that with D. Giedraitis he's the best perimeter defender in the country already. It's between those 2. Marciulionis definitely, it's not even a debate, has more facilitation skills (actually it's not even close) than Dimsa, D. Giedraitis. Maybe this summer it won't be all that evident at this level, but it's there and I think even now he should be capable to run the team more competently and consistently than guys like Kariniauskas, Velicka, Zemaitis. If Marciulionis won't make the team in 2023, he'll be legitimate candidate to make 2024 NT, IMO, specially knowing that Lekavicius is not getting better or younger anymore. I expect very positive impact in the reserve NT. He will be bullying people defensively already, IMO.

[LuDux]

Kariniauskas invited to main NT camp. https://youtu.be/ACUQOEfDVuU?t=133

[Straight forward]

Kariniauskas invited to main NT camp. https://youtu.be/ACUQOEfDVuU?t=133

Liga Națională (somewhere in Romania...) and LNB Pro B studs are always at service when Maksvytis searching for some serious secondary options. Mazeikiai should be proud.

Yet again we're in good old "Gvidonas Markevicius zone", back to the roots...

[Straight forward]

basketnews.lt fast enough to name Kariniauskas as the substitute for Lekavicius...These guys are classy... Hope they already making their millions with that shit

[Straight forward]

Seems like Sabonis out, D-Mo in.

The worst defensive center duet guaranteed. Slow post up offense too, specially with JV. Old school old day. Guards gonna be cooking on us. I had some hope we gonna play some D this time with a bit improved Domas and maybe even throwing someone like Sedekerskis/Tubelis at 5 for very mobile stretches. Now we gonna suck a rock again with flintstones basketball...

[Shawshank]

New summer ,same coaches pattern choosing players and same dinosour experts river cries