2023 Lithuanian NT

[LuDux]

Jokubaitis, Marciulionis
Brazdeikis, Grigonis
Lekavicius (combo)

(and maybe one spot for R.Giedraitis/Dimsa/Rubstavicius)

Pretty good prediction for Eurobasket 2025

[Straight forward]

Pretty good prediction for Eurobasket 2025

How? I don't see this at all.

I'm almost 100% sure we won't see Grigonis in 2025. Knowing his back. He can't play now, in pre-Olympic WC, why would he show up for meaningless EB 2025? I think he will show up to have his likely last big tournament with NT next year and to chase Olympic dream, but I don't see him playing in 25 or little chance. There's a good chance Iggy will skip it too. He committed 22, 23 and almost no doubt he'll show up in 24 Olympic season and in 25 he probably will skip it (just as he planned to skip even this summer). As for Lekavicius he will be 31yo and we will be looking at his agility already. I'm not sure he will even want to play, but I think the level will already be at question.

I would actually see something like that for 2025:

Jokubaitis, Marciulionis (Velicka/Jakucionis)
Rubstavicius, Dimsa (Jogela/Normantas/D. Giedraitis/Lelevicius)

[LuDux]

Jokubaitis, Marciulionis (Velicka/Jakucionis)
Rubstavicius, Dimsa (Jogela/Normantas/D. Giedraitis/Lelevicius)

Pretty good prediction for Worldbasket 2027

[Straight forward]

Pretty argument-absent commenting as usual.

[Shawshank]

In 5minutes specific role with steping out defence i think Maldunas can help more than Tubelis in 2023 ( ale Echodad did in 2022).It has nothing to do with tallent is more who can give better 5 minute streach in 2023 world champ. I like Maldunas physicality versus Wemby,i didnt saw no fear in his eyes.


I dont believe rookie shooter will make shots brought back from bench cold,i rather go with player that does little bit of everything including defence being brought cold for 5minutes.


I dont see point taking another super young PG when we have already very young PG.That makes zero sense from building universal team.No experience coach who have been in those emotional fiba battles would go this way if we are trying to win


IF situation will be critical,team will be looking emotionally lost with main PG Maksvytis gonna put 20 rookie to fix situation? comon

He will put Dimsa at PG like in zalgiris. So i dont see point taking Kariniauskas/Marciulionis at all


I rather have defensive dog Giedraitis as 12th player incase coach will need to bring somebody from bench to put on 1m85 super fast guard.


Thats my argumentation for Maldunas,Jogela,Giedraitis over Kariniauskas/Marciulionis,Sirvydis,Tubelis specificially for 2023 tournament


Im building team that makes sense and pieces compliments each other and not collecting 12 most talented.

[Shawshank]

In 2024 Olympic summer nobody from those 7 players will have realistic chances making NT


But this 2023 summer with having only 50% of best players they have more than real chances

[Straight forward]

I would really like that Maksvytis make his decisions after 2 games with France. Very interesting how Tubelis/Maldunas, Sirvydis/Jogela and say D. Giedraitis/Kariniauskas/Marciulionis would do. I feel like this would give us much more info. Too bad, but I think there's a good chance that Marciulionis won't even be invited to the main camp and that would be very bad decision long term.

Depends what kind of role Maksvytis sees for Kariniauskas or say that "pure back up PG" spot. If Kariniauskas role will be random, just playing here and there in few games then why to bother anyway? Just let Marciulionis to get his feet wet which will help you in the near future. If Maksvytis sees Kariniauskas playing a lot, maybe this makes more sense, but I will remind you that Kariniauskas against FRA in WC qualification 3,5apg, 2 turnovers per game and 3eff and - 6.5 per game in +/-. He's trash generally. He played in Romania last season. When Kazlauskas took him to the NT in 2016 he took him from second Greek division. Next season he will be playing for the club who's coming from NKL. When the next time Kariniauskas will be candidate to make senior NT we'll be taking him from RKL right? I actually agree, we can simply take Giedraitis who already seen plenty of big games and not to take either one from Marciulionis/Kariniauskas. But if to take one of these 2 I think it's a horrible waste to go with Kariniauskas...dead end.

I want to see how Jogela feels against France. I know that Sirvydis is playing like that against anybody. He doesn't care. He dropped 16pts in 16min in the NBA. He dropped 25pts in limited time in Summer League. He dropped 19pts in Eurocup against Unics as 18yo. He is streaky, but his game is translatable to any level. While I want to see Jogela playing against athletic, high level opposition. Wouldn't he look absolutely bleak in that case.

[Shawshank]

Sirvydis best case scenario is R.Giedaitis career

Both long,both shooters and both are one trick ponies that can play only one style basketball

Run and shoot

[Straight forward]

Sirvydis best case scenario is R.Giedaitis career

Both long,both shooters and both are one trick ponies that can play only one style basketball

Run and shoot

Sirvydis dealing with small stretches much better potentially.

[Shawshank]

Sirvydis dealing with small stretches much better potentially.

why because his average 1,9 pts in nba in those small streaches and shooted 31,4% from long range in 23 games ?


That not my cup of tea of players that can do only one thing and in all other areas simply below average.


No defence,no rebounding,no toughness,just hope maybe they will make the shots and if shot isnt going such players become unplayable in 2020s basketball.



Their shooting sounds sexy only in theory,but when you see in reality bring me better Arnas or Ulanovas or Maciulis all around game

[Hepcat]

The lack of such defenders as Butkevicius, Radzevicius at 3....

Lack of defensive glue guys (Butkevicius)....

What?!!! Up until about a year ago you never missed an opportunity to label Arnas Butkevičius as a "low IQ player" (which was much to my annoyance) and now he's a key "defensive glue guy"? Well he's been that for many years although his play has been in a slow decline since it peaked five years ago. So why has your opinion of Butkevičius changed all of a sudden? Could it simply be that he's now with Žalgiris?

[Dreamcatcher]

Why this reserve team every time plays against weak Jordanian NT. It doesn't make any sense.

Also what was the need to take D.Giedraitis to the reserve team if he would anyway go to NT after that no matter how he looks in the reserve one (and he wasn't among the best there).

[Hepcat]

I fully agree. Playing those games against Jordan made no sense at all since they weren't used to test out the players. Here's a table of the comparative performance of the top players over the three games:

PLAYER	POSITION	MINUTES	EFF
Ignas Sargiūnas	PG/SG	21	18.3
Matas Jogėla	SG/SF	19	15.0
Einaras Tubutis	PF	19	14.7
Laurynas Beliauskas	SG	20	14.7
Augustas Marčiulionis	PG	20	14.3
Deividas Sirvydis	SG/SF	19	11.7
Danielius Lavrinovičius	PF/C	17	7.6
Dovydas Giedraitis	PG/SG	19	8.3

Sargiūnas and Beliauskas outshone Giedraitis by miles. And if the coaching staff was more interested in assessing the performance of players at the PG slot than at the SG slot, Marčiulionis outplayed Giedraitis decisively. Marčiulionis had an average of 6.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 1.3 turnovers per game while Giedraitis had an average of 2.3 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.3 turnovers per game.

The fact that the announcement of which three players would be promoted to the main team was made mere minutes after the completion of the third game confirms that the outcome was predetermined. So again why were the games played?

[LuDux]

Players invited are exactly the same as mentioned my Maskvytis as possible invitees two weeks ago. According to 15min headline this was decision by Songaila/

[Straight forward]

They could let Marciulionis to at least run a bit in the main camp. As for other 3 no surprise at all.