2023 Lithuanian NT

[Shawshank]

Go open your threat Augustas Marciulionis and write there your fantasies about him

Here we talking about NT 2023

[Straight forward]

Go open your threat Augustas Marciulionis and write there your fantasies about him

Here we talking about NT 2023

LOL, it is 2023 NT question and the big one. Maksvytis failed with it and I will remind him that. Those who care about LTU BB, as I do, won't let go such mistakes unnoticed. NT sucks once Jokubaitis on the bench, literally, And we will ignore the fact that we didn't even try to solve this problem while the necessary move was obvious for everyone in basketball community basically? Why they organized reserve NT where Augustas was heads and shoulders superior in facilitating than everyone else? He was by far second best facilitating guard of 2023 NT camp (overall) and no-one is even close.

I will quote one of reserve NT coaches and the one who coached U20 last summer and won silver:

"This year he came completely different. Defense. Offense, the control of the team. He surprised me a lot. I would see Augustas in the main camp, but the final solutions are up to Kazys"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL_F0JBamJ4&ab_channel=DelfiVideo

We badly need facilitation and defense from position 1. We have no such player in the NT and Augustas, he had to be in the camp. Period. This decision will hurt NT 2024 and 2025 too. Which shows Maksvytis can't handle the holistic system of the NT. When you are the head coach you have responsibility for the whole pyramind. You not only think about how to survive your ass for this season, but you have to see whole picture and not to ignore pieces that will be important in the nearest future. Seeing such scrubs as Kariniauskas, I have no doubt Marciulionis would do better than him today already. I saw completely different level of creativity, passing culture, offensive burst and way way better defense. And we just cut the guy because "we know ("the shit") that Kariniauskas brings". Yeah, we do know...he gonna suck big time.

If you don't see an issue of back-up 1, you don't only realize the actualities of 2023, you are lost generally. If this problem won't be solved, we gonna have big issues. Even in 00s Saras was substituted with Siskauskas who played as point forward, as PG and he could guard. So we had offensive and more defensively minded line-ups (say with Siskauskas, M.Zukauskas and so on). People think 00s couldn't guard, but that's not true. Siskauskas, M. Zukauskas, E. Zukauskas/Javtokas and you have a very very solid defensive line-up.

My main issues with NT are 2, specially this year, since there's no Domas and Grigonis/Lekavicius:

- Back up pure PG with good defence
- Defensive center/forward for modern D at 5

If we are not solving this, we will suck. And Maksvytis didn't show a single wish to even try to solve first problem, meaning he doesn't realize it the importance of it and naively think he can solve this with some Romanian market srubs. He does realize the importance of the latter though, thus he keeps injured Tubelis together till the last days.

[Straight forward]

I will wait for the WC, but I see the same problems with Maksvytis. It keeps repeating and for only 2 seasons he made already too much mistakes:

- Randomly integrates Cizaskas which off course was taken as a joke by BB community
- Doesn't trust Sedekerskis 2022
- Didn't invite Sirvydis who was at great shape in 2022 (stood out in SL)
- Took Zemaitis, E. Zukauskas, completely waisting 2 spots with zero long term vision
- Cuts Dimsa 2022 who later proved that could help
- He doesn't invite the only true PG that we have after Jokubaitis 2023
- Strange issue with Kulboka which is not properly articulated

To me that's too much. When Adomaitis was coaching, he made some questionable moves in 2017, but he was absolutely spot on with everything in 2019. My main problem with Maksvytis that it feel he handles this head coach position with only 70-80%. He doesn't work with NT in windows full time. He does care little about the whole Olympic cycle, just sees how to survive this year and actually this way only leads to silly decisions going with players who shouldn't be in the NT. Maksvytis has to let go his mediocre mentality and to understand that as a head coach you are the architect of whole LTU basketball pyramid. Kazlauskas was not only concerned with senior NT, but he was directing the while vision of LTU basketball, Youth BB, was hiring coaches and so on. He was entirely responsible for the whole vision and you could feel that with how aggressively he was testing talent each year. Maksvytis is simply not that kind of personality, he can't handle this, and it's obvious. Sometimes I feel that he's with NT like with some private club - I coach now and after 2 years it will not be my problem. I just look how to survive. We badly need super strong personalities as a head coach. Garastas was such. Kazlauskas was such. Unfortunately we stuck after these...

" (...) Many things are invisible - Jonas was responsible not only for the system of the men's, but also for the youth national teams, appointing coaches. That chain is now producing results.

- Will the job bar of the future coach of the Lithuanian national team also include supervision of the entire basketball pyramid?

- Yes, this is one of our conditions. The men's team is today. If we don't pay attention to the bottom, we will have a big problem tomorrow. Strong youth is a strong future of the national team. We are glad that we will not leave an empty space behind us, and this is to John's credit."

https://www.eurobasket.lt/naujienos/m_spokas_rinktines_treneris_gales_dirbti_klube_nes_lkf_moka_juokingus_pinigus_87796/naujiena/87796

That's what I missing in Maksvytis. He took reserve NT as a joke despite federation's attempt to re-establish that culture.

[LuDux]

That federation culture is working miracles this summer

Also Cizauskas was solid in windows


I propose movie about new federation. It's called 12 Medals. Staring Mindaugas Balciunas as Great Combinator and Vydas Gedvilas as Father Of Democracy. Also SF as president of obscure chess..sorry, basketball club

[Straight forward]

That federation culture is working miracles this summer

Also Cizauskas was solid in windows

Regarding federation - Balciunas overdo with financial hunting. On other hand, with increased money we can organize reserve NT which will start sooner next season and will be longer most likely. He also selling LTU NT name too easily to Taiwan, some silly over optimistic speeches here and there, but if you want to have a strong GM you should take him with all his eccentricity. Overall, so far I like his pro-active culture. He decentralized the system which made periphery feel heard, he emphasized of emigrants hunting (finished the process with Brazdeikis, took home Buzelis bros, Indrusaitis), brought back reserve NT, brought back a lot of media noise around NT again and specially women BB, increased youth NT preparation time (last year's Youth results were great). But I didn't like that they hired coach who can't work with NT all the time and doesn't care about being 100% head coach which means responsibility for the whole cycle and whole pyramid (or have to if Balciunas didn't emphasized that) which is the most important. So far it seems that Maksvytis mishandles the rosters, not entirely, but too much mistakes already and he has no long term vision.

Cizauskas didn't exceed a single bit. Maksvytis took him with great speech saying that he has been undeservedly marginalized. But in the NT he just played as always. After that he was heading to the second league of France:

https://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2023/european-qualifiers/player/Vytenis-Cizauskas

[LuDux]

ps. Something is about Normantas he plays in hostile envirenment way better than at home.It happend in full packed zalgiris arena,it happend in France and it happend Finland

Dude is with balls and character.He will help in those emotional fiba battles. Made 2 game tieing free throws with tottaly calm eyes and zero fear.

His revival might have something to do with health. If you look more carefully at his LKL compaign he played all games in first half and averaged almost 13 points. Then he started missing games or finishing with 2-3 points

[Straight forward]

Couple of thoughts about last Finland's possession:

Too easy Sedekerskis switched with Dimsa. JV tried hard, but as always he was sort of guarding some-one, sort of guarding no-one. Normantas pointing out the finger to JV who had to either double team Markkanen big time or head back for boxing out and rebounding. Obviously Jokubaitis slept over the box out, but the guy was way bigger than him under the board. Chaotic defensive possession with 2 players making misread:

https://twitter.com/FIBAWC/status/1687544947434479616

[Shawshank]

If Jokubaitis would make such mental mistake in Barsa Jasikevicius would scream at him big time.

Dimsa managed to make Markaknen shoot airball and let opponents grab rebound with game winner layup unacceptable .



Size have nothing to do when 1 second left just put your body in to bigger dude and no layup impossible in 1 second reboundind type situation.

This was total mental mistake or like Jasikevicius would say such little details decide you win or lose close game.Rokas live reaction shows he understood he made a mistake and already had scared eyes now Saras gonna scream at me,oh wait its not Barcelona game


Its good such situation happend in friendly game,coaches gonna show video and repeat dont watch the ball,but put your body in nearest men and box out


Once again Dimsa i trust in those endings,both times he played like player that understand details and not loosing head.Fantastic defence vs Markanen

Maskvytis manny times played Dimsa in endings over Brazdeikis in euroleague too,in NT i see same thing. IF Brazdeikis isnt cooking offensively,he can be trusted in defensive rotations in game endings

[Shawshank]

That federation culture is working miracles this summer

Also Cizauskas was solid in windows


I propose movie about new federation. It's called 12 Medals. Staring Mindaugas Balciunas as Great Combinator and Vydas Gedvilas as Father Of Democracy. Also SF as president of obscure chess..sorry, basketball club

It was tough summer for federation indeed

It all started with Jonas Paukste and Modestas Paulauskas jr. on NT 2023 candidate list and jokes coming from that

After that all NTs failed this summer,only hopes left B roster they only managed to get of LTU men NT and boys u16

They organise u-20 girls tournament where home team loosing by 50pts like every game and they also double on that they will organise same event next summer.

Seeing how Balciunas operates money is around somewhere there


After NT men will fail (hopefully not) we gonna get to media some promissing articles how federation made deals with somebody and how prommising future is just to distract attention from very bad 2023 summer for Lithuania basketball

[Straight forward]

Jokubaitis in 2 games has 16ppg, 6.5apg, 20.5eff in 23mpg. Not against the top teams, but good teams nevertheless. So far very good indication. He's much more determined, precise, aggressive than last year.

This WC tournament with B team obviously is wild shot, but his development is very promising and hopeful for 2024 specially. Now I see that there's a really good chance that Jokubaitis will be ready to lead NT from position 1 at elite level in Olympics (qualification at first). In other words, our campaign in 2024 might be very serious. If Jokubaitis can go with full force already that thing alone changes our upside dramatically. Somewhat similarly like it happened in 2000 when Jasikevicius broke out and was scoring +20 in the knock out stage.

Assuming Brazdeikis will also get better (second half of EL was promising), with all pieces we might have the best Olympic team since 2008, somewhat similar in terms of quality. Meaning we might basically have an elite NT again. Not borderline elite, but elite if Jokubaitis and Brazdeikis will be truly braking out. They already good, but still need some time to fully flourish. That might happen in 2024. IDK if Iggy will ever be truly elite player, but I have no doubt about Jokubaitis. Each year he steadily goes towards that.

Our Olympic hope really depends on those 2 players a lot, how much they will be ready to provide. Obviously Sabonis, JV, Grigonis can provide something what they did in 2022, a little more (in Domas case), or a little less (In JVs case, or even Marius maybe) maybe, but their impact is known. The question is how much better Brazdeikis and specially Jokubaitis (as main pillar of NT from perimeter, similarly to Jasikevicius) will get better.

Those 5 players seen top level (well, Iggy's NBA campaign was fragmental, but my projection is that he will attract some attention of top EL clubs after next EL season). If they can play well, we can fight with any team basically. But that's with strong condition that Jokubaitis playing at elite level already. Meaning going for some serious numbers in the knock out stage, like 18-22ppg, 6-9apg.

https://twitter.com/ltu_basketball/status/1686435300598304772

[R1ou]

Today Tarolis and Sirvydis looked tottaly lost and coached didnt even put them in 2 half .I would send Kariniauskas near them on bench too


Other 9 players is our main playoofs type game rotation

Jokubaitis,Dimsa,Normantas,Brazdeikis,Kuzminskas,B endzius,Sedekerskis,Dmo,Jonas



ps. Something is about Normantas he plays in hostile envirenment way better than at home.It happend in full packed zalgiris arena,it happend in France and it happend Finland

Dude is with balls and character.He will help in those emotional fiba battles. Made 2 game tieing free throws with tottaly calm eyes and zero fear.



I looked at Greece first half, they are looking better and more convincing than LTU at this stage of preparation.

I was also positively surprised by the way Greece looked in those 2 games against Slovenia. Although it's well known Slovenia is a bad defensive team, no way I'd think such a Greek squad with all these absensees would score 98 and 88 to them.

[Hepcat]

So here are the comparative Efficiency stats for the various Lithuania players in the friendly against Finland:


EXCELLENT

PLAYER	MINUTES	EFFICIENCY
Margiris Normantas	16:55	16
Donatas Motiejūnas	13:29	12
Rokas Jokubaitis	22:45	17
Jonas Valančiūnas	23:15	17

VERY GOOD

PLAYER	MINUTES	EFFICIENCY
Mindaugas Kuzminskas	19:12	12

GOOD

PLAYER	MINUTES	EFFICIENCY
Tomas Dimša	20:35	9

FAIR

PLAYER	MINUTES	EFFICIENCY
Ignas Brazdeikis	18:29	7
Tadas Sedekerskis	16:41	5

BAD

PLAYER	MINUTES	EFFICIENCY
Deividas Sirvydis	4:53	0
Vaidas Kariniauskas	17:15	-3
Donatas Tarolis	9:02	-2
Eimantas Bendžius	17:25	-4

I wish we had the +/- numbers as well but we'll have to make do with what we've got for now.

[Hepcat]

I will quote one of reserve NT coaches and the one who coached U20 last summer and won silver:

"This year he came completely different. Defense. Offense, the control of the team. He surprised me a lot. I would see Augustas in the main camp, but the final solutions are up to Kazys"

Augustas Marčiulionis' production in the 2022 U20 tournament wasn't that impressive though:

2022 U20	GAMES	MINUTES	POINTS	ASSISTS	STEALS	TURNOVERS	EFF
Augustas Marčiulionis	7	27:00	9.1	4.9	2.7	1.7	8.7

...Augustas, he had to be in the camp. Period.

Okay. It's true that Marčiulionis did outperform Dovydas Giedraitis in the three games against Jordan:

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

But then again Ignas Sargiūnas outperformed both Marčiulionis and Giedraitis by a wide margin and Sargiūnas didn't get an invitation to the main camp at all. Very curious. The reason 21 year old Marčiulionis didn't get an invitation to the main camp was probably because his numbers playing against kids in the NCAA were at best unimpressive:

SEASON	GAMES	MINUTES	POINTS	ASSISTS	STEALS	TURNOVERS
2021-22	34	15:06	3.1	1.8	0.9	1.6
2022-23	35	15:30	5.9	1.6	0.5	1.0

Hopefully you're aware of these numbers. I'm sure the Lithuanian team coaches have studied them.

[Hepcat]

II think we should take injured Tubelis to the WC. It's obvious we getting absolute zero from Maldunas/Tarolis.

Absolutely not! When a 21 year old rookie shows up to camp not ready to practice because he's injured both his ankles playing streetball in the chucking circus called Summer League, it's a very clear sign that the national team isn't much of a priority for him. Ąžuolas Tubelis should have been sent home already.

[Hepcat]

My main issues with NT are 2, specially this year, since there's no Domas and Grigonis/Lekavicius:

- Back up pure PG with good defence
- Defensive center/forward for modern D at 5

If we are not solving this, we will suck. And Maksvytis didn't show a single wish to even try to solve first problem....

Actually the lack of defence at the backup PG slot pretty well solves itself with the absence of Lukas Lekavičius. His diminuitive size has always made him a liability on defence. He had the worst +/- number on the team during last summer's Eurobasket despite scoring a very respectable 7.7 points per game over an average of 14:54 minutes:

Lithuanian Team Stats - Eurobasket 2022