2024 Lithuanian NT

[Straight forward]

Rokas Giedraitis is the best example. By his status and club performance he deserves to be in. But should he be in. The answer is NO.

[Straight forward]

Leksas is not one of those who I would approve as having it. He just picked the biggest names. At least he didn't included R. Giedraitis, that's a bonus for him. But this roster simply doesn't make sense. Explain me why we need 3 almost similar offensive forwards in Brazdeikis, Sirvydis, Kuzminskas? It doesn't make sense. None of these can play D. Now three lumberjakcs? Really.

In my book Lekavicius out - Marciulionis in.

Sirvydis/Kuzminskas out - D. Giedraitis in.

D-Mo out - Buzelis/Tubelis in.

People should start building a team and not just select the biggest names. Besides there's defensive end of basketball, like equally important as offense, hello.

https://www.basketnews.lt/srautas/202202-lekso-rinktines-dvyliktukas-ka-pakeistumete.html

[Shawshank]

Kuzminskas is lock.He was hidden captain in 2022,2023 NT.Coaches and federation people put him to talk to camera when things went badly. Clearly he was one main voices in loockeroom too.

Kuzminskas become what Javtokas were in last year's + Kuz is way more productive player on floor too compared to both of them in their 30+ age.


if all 3 centers are in top 8 Lithuanian players right now by shown results this season they all must be taken.

I would be shocked if coaches won't take starting 5 player from final four Euro league team

It's impossible to ignore Dmo when he performed so well this season and was very solid backup in 2023 NT too.


Coaches have to choose they want Sirvydis offence or D.Giedraitis defence

Seeing Italy and Puerturico roster strengths it's easy choice.

[Straight forward]

If you take Kuzminskas, you shouldn't take Sirvydis. Both are essentially shooters at this point (Sirvydis slowly elevates his game into versatile scorer, but NT will see the shades of that only later) without defense. Brazdeikis should be taken as likely the most explosive slasher in the team, but even he is somewhat similar, I mean pure offense and no defense. So there's a traffic of similar players. It's stupid just to fill the team according to the names, but not the profiles.

Why D-Mo must be taken? Watch Serbia - LTU D-Mo minutes closely. Watch his D. You will change your mind, I promise. When he entered the game, the first defensive possession, he gives Petrusev wide open three literally and he makes it. That's how he starts the key game. And then after few moments he leaves Petrusev wide open for a lay up after pick and roll. Literally - THERE ZERO DEFENCE. Guards are not responsible if you suck defensively.

Giedraitis must be taken. If he won't be taken it will be the fail of the decade. Even bigger fail than leaving Sedekerskis aside in 2022 (which likely costed us medals). Giedraitis not only locks best guards, but no-one goes through screens better than him which would improve pick and roll defense with our lumberjacks a tons.

[Shawshank]

Why Dmo?

Because coaches can have idea : if something happens to Domas or Jonas health wise what is better to have ?

A) Euro league final four center that every week plays best Europe's centers

or

B) have some Rytas or Lietkabelis or Neptunas center that is more mobile but played every weak only lkl centers?

+ With no or very limited highest basketball experience.


Let NT coaches vote and results would be in 4-1 in favour of center from Euro league playoofs that can be put cold of the bench and won't start making stupid inexperienced mistakes like forget to box out his man and so on.

[Straight forward]

I mean we finished the last tournament being swept by Serbians and D-Mo was obviously huge target and basically unplayable. He was -19. Even Lumberjack Valanciunas did much better than D-Mo and I hate such players as JV for contemporary basketball. I mean there's literally no ground to believe that D-Mo can be positive against top teams and fighting in knock out stage. In FIBA you will face a bit stronger players than freakin' Wilbekin you know. We have to look how to be again freakin' relevant team again and not how to select all possible lumberjacks.

I sincerely suggest to close some games with Sedekerskis, Ulanovas, Grigonis, Giedraitis, Jokubaitis. And Sabonis should play 28mpg at center and Valanciunas 12mpg at center. That's it. Only Sedekerskis and maybe Tubelis if he makes it should face any minutes at center. If we will be slow and zero defense team again - good team will spit on our face, wash their boots and we will sweep us again. And, yes, taking D-Mo is recipe for that.

People are sleeping. We need to build winning, hello We need to push for it. Some moves has to be made. 9 fucking years without medals. LTU basketball is like sleepy beauty from province now.

[Shawshank]

That Dmo played badly in Serbia game I agree I said myself here that NT lost that game in Dmo minutes with like -18 and not in fairy tale made by you ale in Valanciunas vs Milutinov minutes with just -4

But saying that and being objective vs Greece, vs USA Dmo was very good. I would argue better than JV

2023 LTU bench with

Kariniauskas,Dimsa,Kuzminskas,Bendzius,Dmo was killing opponents benches in like 6 of 8 games.

So explain how that lineup had very good +- ? They had unplayable PG, unplayable center and unplayable PF

because according to you every single player in that bench lineup is not NT calibre player But their +- was clearly game changer and NT went on runs


My understanding was that bench had street smarts dudes that's why.Not a single low iq player in that bench lineup,they simply outsmarted opponents benches

[Straight forward]

How D-Mo was better than JV against Greeks if he had 23eff and D-Mo 11 and JV 24+/- and D-Mo 3? Against Greeks Jokubaitis, JV, Brazdeikis carried us. Against USA maybe D-Mo had a decent game.

But you're missing game. As a NT Lithuania should strive to come back being competitive among the best teams. In WC we faced only one such team. Prepared Serbia. Greece was trash. USA was without scouting and Lithuania played completely stress free. Serbia was that game, that level, with which you have to deal if you want to be top notch NT again.

The thing is we need more defense, more talent, more athleticism, more explosiveness, more ISO skills and so on. Slow players who can barely move won't help us to win serious games. We need to build or slowly work on it, to create NT which can win serious games again.

[Shawshank]

Go and watch since middle 3 querter Vs Greece and how LTU bench from +4 game made to + 18 and Greece was demoralised and it was game over.

Dmo 3 pointer,Bendzius,Kuz 3pointers,freaking Kariniauskas 3pointer and game was over

What was funny

Greece couldn't even score on our bench lineup with Dmo,Bendzius,Kariniauskas,Kuzminskas that's sounds like comedy but that what happend


Elimination game vs Greece game LTU bench won


Monaco playing Dmo at center 20min was 3rd best team in eurolegue and risking beat Saras team in a series

Saying that Dmo is unplayable is ridiculous and results shows that

[Straight forward]

Dude, Greece was trash. What do you don't get it? It was second rate team, at the level of New Zealand basically. That level teams has nothing to do with who LTU has beat to end where it wants to be, like semis or medals. Besides, Joku, JV and Iggy were the best players of the team. They carried NT when Greece still had some gass in their tank.

[Shawshank]

Greece had 8 euroleague players with Walcup. Thats ale trash team would beat our window team convincingly.

Those Greece euroleague players knows how to play such games,they slow down the game and try to win in the end thats their game plan for last 30 years.

But our bench made such a run in 3 querter and Itoudis wasnt believing they lost game with Valanciunas,Jokiubaitis,Brazdeikis,Sedekerkis all sitting on the bench.


Trash team is from Assia or Africa but any version of top 10 euro team is not trash .Those dudes can play and wont beat themselfs.



Dmo is so unplayable that in euroleague playoofs his minutes increased from 18 to 22min playing Saras team that is hunting opponents weakness expert

Thats only shows Dmo is very smart center and take advantage of his slow speed opponnets need have specific bad machup for DMo that also have good shooting day like Petrusev SF type player in C body.

[Straight forward]

My prediction of Maksvytis' 15 candidates of the main NT camp:

Jokubaitis, Lekavicius, Grigonis, Brazdeikis, D. Giedraitis, Dimsa, Ulanovas, Butkevicius, Sirvydis, Sedekerskis, Kuzmisnkas, Sabonis, Valanciunas, Motiejunas, Tubelis

I just tried to collect players and see how hard/easy it is to make it.

It will be interesting to see if Maksvytis will exclude R. Giedraitis, but knowing his constant struggle with NT it would only be logical, specially now with D. Giedraitis and Sirvydis improvements.

Players as Kariniauskas, Dimsa, Tubelis, Bendzius will be borderliners. They may be in, may be out. I think Normantas is out of question.

I think Marciulionis and Rubstavicius (if he's available) will be invited only to reserve NT. Knowing Kazys, he will do everything to avoid players that he doesn't know and understand even if they will look very well. But if these 2 will play for the reserve, hands down they will be tortching everything around and Maksvytis will inevitably feel huge pressure to give them a chance cause BB community will see three games of reserve NT on air. I hope Maksvytis won't hesitate and give Marciulionis and Rubstavicius a chance from day 1 of main camp, if they will show how good they are.

To me it's simple. We need more defense and athleticism at 1 (so Marciulionis candidature is very important). We need more defense at 2 (so D. Giedraitis is a lock). We need more defense at 3-4 and there's Butkevicius, Ulanovas addition is huge. And we need more defense at 5, but the only chance to improve this is to expect better performance by Sabonis and to play Sedekerskis at this position more eagerly. I actually argue that NT would be a better team if only Sabonis and Sedekerskis would be played at 5 (and JV would be a third center).

If this will be the picture, we could DRAMATICALLY improve our defence. Nothing short but dramatically. When you think about it we have Marciulionis, D. Giedraitis, Butkevicius, Ulanovas, Sedekerskis, that's 5 plus defenders. Three of them are elite defenders (Marciulionis, D. Giedraitis, Butkevicius). In 2022 we had only had one plus defender Butkevicius. In 2023 only Sedekerskis. Having 5 of those and 3 elite perimeter defenders would be really substantial improvement of the NT. I hope Maksvytis understands that.

Maksvytis has 2 choices basically. One. He could simply go with the best names and that would mean that he forms purely offensive team and he tries to win it with great offense. The team would look like that:

Jokubaitis, Lekavicius
Grigonis, Brazdeikis, (R. Giedraitis)
Ulanovas, Butkevicius, Sirvydis
Sedekerskis, Kuzminskas
Sabonis, Valanciunas, Motiejunas

Second, he emphasizes the need of defense and makes the mix of offensive and defensive players.

Jokubaitis, Marciulionis, D. Giedraitis
Grigonis, Brazdeikis, Dimsa
Ulanovas, Butkevicius,
Sedekerskis, Kuzminskas,
Sabonis, Valanciunas

I would surely be the fan of second. We badly need to make our defense as tough and agile as possible. And with my mention 5 players we can do that. I would even mention Grigonis, if he will play at 3 and will want to work on it, he can be a decent defender as well, better than say Brazdeikis or Sirvydis at 3 for sure. The thing, it's very very unlikely that we can win medals with Sabonis, Jokubaitis, Grigonis, Brazdeikis (Valanciunas, Sedekerskis Ulanovas) playing primarily offensive basketball. We should build up the defense. That's our best chance to win. Good defense + good offense might be even the recipe for medals in 2024. Bad defense + good offense (2022 case) is unlikely to bring any success (we lost all game endings in 2022, it's partially on Maksvytis, but also on the lack of defensive grip).

The recipe is pretty clear. We will remain one of the best offensive teams in the world (in 2022 we were 6th with 89ppg and in 2023 8th with 89ppg). Our team actually will be offensively superior to 2022 and 2023 teams. Sabonis is better than before, Jokubaitis, Sedekerskis, Brazdeikis also better. And Grigonis the same, and JV more or less the same too (slightly declined). Besides there should be Ulanovas who would boost a offense a bit as well. So the way I see it, we should actually stay 88-91ppg kinda team, but overall I expect even slight grow of scoring potential and would hope to see us dropping 92-93ppg which would make us top 5 in Olympics. So offense will be there. The question how much can we improve our D and that's must. From good D, there would come more defensive rebounds, more steals and that would mean more easy points in transition.

If Maksvytis will be smart enough (which I don't expect anymore unfortunately), we can construct good offense + good defense kinda team. That may even give as a chance to fight for medals.

Later in some 2028 we will be competing for medals (IMO) cause we will have tremendous offensive talent with Jakucionis, prime Jokubaitis, prime Sirvydis, Rubstavcius, Buzelis, still prime Sabonis and so on. We will have not only good (as now), but absolutely elite offensive talent. With elite offense (and Slovenia kinda proved it recently) you can fight for medals even having bad defense. But you stand no chance winning medals with only good offense and band defense. That's why for 2024 NT it's a must to build good defense and I strongly suggest to have Augis, Dovis, Butke, Ule, Sedas (+ probably Dimsa) in the final unit.

I went trough the stats of 2022 and 2023 and found few interesting ones.

In 2022 we were 6th best scoring team with 89ppg, but we were not good shooting team. Only 16th spot with 33,8%. Maybe only better shooting could be enough for 2022 team to succeed (and some more defense?)?

In 2023 we also were scoring 89ppg, but we were the best shooting team in the whole WC with 42.2%.

Meaning we might see 2024 team being much superior in offense if threes will fall.

Another very interesting thing is that Lithuania was second dead last in steals in 2022 and dead LAST in 2023. We had only 4,3 steals per game in 2023 while Serbia and USA had 9 steals per game. That illustrates well that our D was crap. (In 2022 we had even lower, 3.8 stlpg).

In my opinion steals stat is underrated. It shows how good the team is defensively, how much it hustles. Deflections stats would be very handy too. We need to improve this stat. We will be controlling the boards. We were the best team in 2022 and 2023 (from serious teams) as well. But we need better legs, agility and hands at D. We need guys who can play on ball D. That's I want 5 my mentioned guys + Buzelis is he's available. Buzelis could give some benefits already with a small role too.

If Lithuania improves D. Watch out. We may be sneaky good to challenge the top tier of teams.

[Shawshank]

My prediction of Maksvytis' 15 candidates of the main NT camp:

Jokubaitis, Lekavicius, Grigonis, Brazdeikis, D. Giedraitis, Dimsa, Ulanovas, Butkevicius, Sirvydis, Sedekerskis, Kuzmisnkas, Sabonis, Valanciunas, Motiejunas, Tubelis

R.Giedraitis will be invited to camp,but unlikely to make the team.

Butkevicius is big question will he be healthy His body clearly showing age signs. When dude is asked to defend all opponnents stars he must 100% healthy or wont be effective

Brazdeikis not playing basketball for 6 months will effect his form.He will be tottaly out of playing rhytmh and only playing in real games cant bring that back. Wouldnt be suprised Brazdeikis will end up playing way less this summer . Its very difficult playing 0minutes per game and suddenly go to 25minutes in a week or so.


I see 10 locks were only injury can prevent them making the team

Jokubaitis,Grugonis,Brazdeikis,Ulanovas,Butkeviciu s,Sedekerskis,Kuzminskas,Sabonis,Valanciunas,Dmo



Lekavicius,D.Giedraitis,R.Giedraitis,Dimsa,Sirvydi s


2 of them will make the team.Impossible to predict which ones.

It will be very much coaches playing style desicions and players basketball shape in that particular month.

[Shawshank]

Euroleague leading scorer 19,5pts Marcus Howard offcially is allowed to play for Puerturico NT


1m78 M.Howard and 1m83 Jose Alvarado from Nba fascinating speed and unpredictability moments with this tandem.

One is shooting 3point expert and Alvarado is defensive very anoying pitbull (top 5 in steals per minutes in nba)

Looking at 2023 fiba world cup Puerturico leading scorer were 1m80 Tremont Waters 20,2pts .Im not sure Waters was naturalised or he is counted as puerturican (his mother is puerturican according to vikipedia)


I can bet LTU coaches game plan will be slow down game as much possible.Do not run and gun with those small and wild puerturicans in their own emotional arena

[Straight forward]

Alvarado, Howard, Waters would be a pain in the ass, specially potentially. If you allow them get it going, it's over. Besides there's Nuggets 22yo swingman Julian Strawther, who also can be dangerous in certain games and ACB scorer Jordan Howard who drops 14.4ppg. More of a chucker though, not a smart, efficient scorer. Nevertheless all this makes PR backcourt red hot and potentially deadly.

I hate that the coach is Maksvytis. In this context not only a smart coach would go with death grip Marciulionis at the defensive end and I'm not even talking about D. Giedraitis, he becomes maybe the most important player in this context, but also Lithuania has to solve permanent problem which follow us ever since we became outdated lumberjack team...that is transition defense. I'm not even talking about JV, he's a dead end at this, but even also Sabonis often is late in transition D. Sedekerskis is good at it though. Tubelis is good at it too. Azuolas is even good chase down shot blocker. So a smart coach, would have choices. If you will let Howard, Alvarado, Waters run and take open threes in transition, game over. They are good at it.

LTU somehow have to force PR to chuck up bad shots. So we have to put them on slow half court BB and with pressure and physicality to limit their options. In this case they would take tons of contested threes and they wouldn't have enough physicality to feel comfortable inside.

Really good coach would do it. Maksvytis however is not really good coach. Howard is a bad news. As well as it is bad news if Donte Divincenzo plays for Italy.

In this context the rotation of D. Giedraitis, Marciulionis, Butkevicius (elite) and even Dimsa, Grigonis (decent) perimeter defenders become key and using more defensively capable bigs Sedekerskis, Tubelis would be very important as well. Tubelis gets punished defensively in post defense, but Puerto Rico is all about perimeter and transition at which Tubelis is solid.

But Maskvytis will grind the same way. We will be slow at both ends, and we will allow many quality looks for PR, just as we allowed it for Serbia, Latvia and others in WC. He will fail to make adjustments again unfortunately. It's his nature, it's who he is. He will go with mediocrity and won't have intuition and balls to go for necessary new addition.