2024 Lithuanian NT

[Straight forward]

dinosour expert explain us why


Your praised Nba player Sirvydis lost individual battle to lkl guards Kariniauskas,Dimsa,Normantas in 2023 NT camp summer?

Firstly in trainings to get only 5th guard minutes and after that in tournament too ,when our ale best shooter Sirvydis was 2nd worst shooter on entire team

Redneck expert

He didn't lose anything to Kariniauskas. His position was 2-3 wing role player off the bench for very short stretches. It's very difficult to cover this position. Even players as R. Giedraitis or Milaknis (2017) struggled with that. Sirvydis as expected was inconsistent. Some good sparkles, some bad stretches. IMO, he still showed more than R. Giedraitis dealing with such role. Obviously Giedraitis doesn't feel comfortable with such role while I think Sirvydis does pretty well, it's just a matter of experience and maturity. He is not yet finished product as a player surely. He also needs one consistent season at PROs again to be in his optimal shape. Maksvytis rightfully gave very limited role for him, he needs more time still, but don't have any illusions that this role is easily covered. A lot of players would struggle with it. How I see Sirvydis going further? I think he has a chance to develop into useful role player at the wing, specially going off the staggers. In other words, perfecting and increasing that role that Maksvytis gave him this year. When Maksvytis said he sees him as one one of the keys in the future, I definitely don't see that. Solid role player both EL (like true EL player ale R. Giedraitis) and NT is what I see. When he was 17-18yo I was projecting him as much more versatile player (in U18 EB he still looked as the guy with highest upside next to Jokubaitis and D. Giedraitis, that length,ability to put the ball on the floor, flexibility, elite three), nearly point forward, playing with the ball a lot, but his development arc tuned the other way latter and he became more of the off ball shooter, losing a stint of ball handling, agility (guard skill). For him is the key to improve D (the motor is there, but latteral quickness and flexibility not really), then he would get a job as 3 and D kinda guy in many teams.

[Shawshank]

Dinosour expert


But didnt fiba history teaches us that rookies wont make shots in first fiba tournament?

Sirvydis is latest example. Best shooter on entire team before tournament suddenly become one of worst shooters


How do you know that next youngster you will be praising here wont miss those shots too in his rookie tournament?

[Straight forward]

Dinosour expert


But didnt fiba history teaches us that rookies wont make shots in first fiba tournament?

Sirvydis is latest example. Best shooter on entire team before tournament suddenly become one of worst shooters


How do you know that next youngster you will be praising here wont miss those shots too in his rookie tournament?

Sirvydis played just 10mpg, scored 5ppg playing without the ball all the time. How much more can you ask from a 10min. player? Specially the rook? 32% is not a tragedy for guy who goes off the staggers, for a rookie. I doubt many guys could do much better in this role. Maksvytis made a good decision, IMO, he didn't waste a spot of a guy who would show up only in one tournament and no-one would see him again. Now Sirvydis can cover this role in the future if we will need that kind of player.

BTW, Brazdeikis last year shot the ball well as a rookie. Sirvydis performance definitely depended a lot on shooting and he failed with it to certain extent, but not miserably. When we speak about potential rookies of 2024 (Tubelis, Rubstavicius, Velicka, Marciulionis, D. Giedraitis), then neither of them depends on three so much as Sirvydis. They can add good things aside shooting. Much like Jokubaitis provided in 2021, 2022 as a rookie despite shooting poorly.

[Hepcat]

Next year he won't have that luxury. Iggy will be used at 3 cause Butkevicius will be coming back and even Ulanovas may join, and if Grigonis shows up Giedraitis is not even needed.

I take it you mean Iggy will be used at 2. He was used at 3 in this year's World Cup.

[Straight forward]

Eureka! Finally I have a player which opinion is just absolutely spot on. His insight are straight, up to contemporary ball and no parialities. And it's Gecevicius. All summer long good insights. Kleiza is close to that, but he has a little bit lazy brains and he's not so observant. Gecevicius openly trashed JV's defense and his slow decisions and predictability offensively (ex teammate in Rytas), he trashed D-Mo's slow and ineffective step outs (ex teammate in youth NT and NT), he said today - Margiris didn't disappoint and didn't surprise in NT which is absolutely spot on. And most importantly - both Dimsa and Normantas are not guards that are needed for contemporary basketball which is also complete true. Finally I have voice that I can fully trust, and, boy, it's rarity. The talk about Normantas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhCysLcgGPI&ab_channel=O%2CDangau%21

[Shawshank]

In all podcast now people were doing rankings of the teams and everybody repeating similiar stuff : team will be good as as good your perimeter players are and ranked teams accordingly.

Todays basketball is mostly about perimeter players levels. in NTs battles were teams have no time to built systems,perimeter player level is even more important


Thats why im repeating LTU NT is not winning medal again untill our backourt is weakeast from all top 8 NTs.


15min euroleague backups is not leading NT to medal playing versus nba perimeter players.

in 2023 everything went LTU NT way super easy draw,good shooting luck,very good team chemistry and still one real opponnets came in 1/4 with perimeter star and LTU had no chance

[Straight forward]

From what I see, we can field the best Olympic roster since 2008. It would be slightly superior, IMO, to 2012 (debatable though), and definitely superior to 2016, 2020. It will still be inferior to 2008, but we have a pretty convincing core. From that perspective, it's a big positive, we are getting better and this growth will have very strong continuation heading to 2028 Olympics where I hope we will have a chance to fight for the top spots realistically. Now what I see with 2024 roster:

Jokubaitis
Brazdeikis, Grigonis
Ulanovas, Butkevicius
Sedekerskis
Sabonis, Valanciunas

That's legitimate all Euroleague level 8 men rotation without any drag up. In my opinion all these pieces are 100% EL material, meaning every player gets the job in EL outside Zalgiris. Even Butkevicius. IMO, he's flat out among top 5 best defenders in EL and likely even top 3. And he's pretty flexible offensively too in his prime. IMO, absolutely any team in EL could use him as short stretches guy.

I see that Grigonis still have it. 17pts vs Oly is real deal. Sedekerskis will be even better, strong start of EL. If Grigonis can come in the shape of 2022 and we have one year better Jokubaitis, Iggy, that's the best backcourt since 2008. IMO, 2024 Rokas, Marius, Iggy > Kaukenas, Pocius, Jasikevicius

Let's compere that with 2012 Olympic roster:

Jasikevicius, Kalnieits
Kaukenas, Pocius
Keiza, Jasaitis
Jankunas
Songaila

Legitimate 8 men rotation, but Jasikevicius, Kaukenas and Songaila really were vets than and it felt, specially going down the stretch of the tournament. Maciulis was coming after injury and was trash in that tournament and Valanciunas sucked too as as still too young. For some reasons Kalnietis also had a pretty bad tournament too. Seibutis also had injury in the summer and even missed qualification in Venezuela, he was meh too. So this team had certain issues and could be even better if all healthy and 100% ready.

I don't really have any big expectations for 2024, NT should go without much of pressure, just as they did in 2023 and it worked (just that this decision to go all the way against USA didn't work for us well in terms of final results, but the tournament was more positive than negative). I would just like NT to get into Olympics, that's the most important and then to play as an underdog in Olympics, which we surely are. When we are underdogs, we usually play very quality basketball. Most important thing that NT is silently and slowly, but obviously improving which is overlooked by cryings for the lack of medals. The overlooked positive also is that we have at least 4 pieces who stand right on the edge of becoming serious players (meaning EL material), that's Tubelis, Rubstavicius, Sirvydis, Marciulionis. They are potential X factors. We didn't have such amount of boderlining talents in 2012, 2016, 2020, and that's just a scratch as even bigger stints of NT material prospects will be knocking into the NT doors in upcoming years. This positive shouldn't be overlooked, and however you watch, we'll have a big step forward in 2024 if we collect those 8 best players ATM. That's the big if (knowing Ulanovas, Grigonis issues), but knowing that it's Olympics, I hope for the best.

In 2012 Kaukenas with 7.8ppg, Pocius, 7.2ppg, Jasikevicius 6.8ppg

In 2024 I see Jokubaitis with 12-14ppg, Iggy 12-14ppg, Grigonis 10-14ppg (my projection is that both Jokubaitis and Brazdeikis will be superior to Grigonis in 2024 summer, more explosive/athletic, while Grigonis will be focusing on shooting and maybe even play a little bit less with the ball than he did in 2022).

2012 had more facilitation with Jasikevicius, Kalnietis, but 2024 guards can way exceed it with scoring. Specially if Jokubaitis and Brazdeikis will make another big stride forward which I expect.

Catch and shoot. That's the main role that I see for Grigonis, just as he has now with PAO. He's elite at that. Grigonis shoots, while Jokubaitis and Iggy primarily goes for strong slashes and disrupting the defenses. If this trio will play well and shoot well (Rokas 55% three in WC and Iggy 52%), then we can expect that Sabonis will have much more freedom too and will give us bigger scoring boost inside as well as great ball movement and chemistry between those pieces. IMO, even Sedekerskis should shoot a little but more. He can do it. He didn't shot the ball much, but 37.5% three for PF is solid. And he's a great cutter. If I'm the coach I like what I can do with those 8 pieces and you have a big like Sabonis who is a glue big. The most important thing is to limit JV's minutes to 12-15mpg. This has to be done.

PS: Please, Shawshank, don't come and reply with "But American guards will..." blah blah. Seriously, don't Post has nothing to do with that shit which you repeated here 20 times in 2 weeks.

[Shawshank]

Dinosour expert


why you comparing always with the past? to win 2020s medal team will need to beat not the past,but present higher level basketball


Compare Jokubaitis/Brazdeikis to Shai,Schroder,Bogdanovich,Mills,Booker,Doncic,Four nier how they matchup vs them


Compare core 8-9 players of LTU 2024 not to 2012,but to 2024 Canada 2024 Serbia 2024 France 2024 Germany and so on


They will need to beat them.Having more tallent than LTU 2012 or LTU 2016 wont help alot because todays competion is clearly better than it was 10 years ago.


You better open your eyes and see what is happening globally,not just what is happening in lithuanian garden otherwise you simply wont get it why better on tallent NT compare to 10 years ago shows worse results.

Opponenst strenght also matters not just your own

[Straight forward]

Dinosour expert


why you comparing always with the past? to win 2020s medal team will need to beat not the past,but present higher level basketball


Compare Jokubaitis/Brazdeikis to Shai,Schroder,Bogdanovich,Mills,Booker,Doncic,Four nier how they matchup vs them

LOL, so you just had to come up with the same argument again! Seriously, dude?

I'm comparing current with the past because of simple thing - it's important to move forward, to constantly improve. That's, IMO, should be our primarily goal and orientation. What we can truly control is our own development and improvement. As the small country we should walk extra miles all the time, to put it more job and effort than countries like France, Serbia (now Canada) and so on. You never can control what others have, but it's important to track your own development. As in psychology - compare yourself with your yesterday's self, not with others, if you want to truly grow. There will always be better teams, or almost all the time will be better teams (theoretically it's possible that Lithuania wins WC or Olympics), cause we as small country can't really compete with USA when they bring their A team. If I see that our NT is improving I treat is as positive. If you will take the point of view of wanting to win it all, you will always be disappointed and you won't progress. In my opinion, maybe there have been too much negativity about NT recently and Kuz talked about it. This summer was different and NT fans gave a lot of positive feedback to the team. That's important, that's important to grow and value that growth of our own, cause the worst thing what can happen is linking NT with only stress and negativity. In tournaments when there's too much pressure and only negative feedback from society our results are bad, even worse than our status quo capabilities (2011). In my opinion NT received too much hate in 2016-2021 period. And here my attitude is changing. I also used to say like Kleiza today says - let's not lower the bar, let's demand medals and so on, but no - it's artificial carriage. When you dig deeper into pedagogy and psychology of development, you will find that positive affirmation is always more effective than pressuring or punishing, condemnation. Like with kids in highschool - the best of them have their natural interest and you don't need to push them, you just help them and encourage them. I think this negativity and increased attention and following by media made more harm than good, now players feel those high demands and condemnations much more than previously, they use social media and all them read comments. I have no doubt that the record of absences have a lot to do with that. Why should I risk my body, emotions and time which I can dedicate to my family for just to receive a lot of hate and negativity? I think LTU BB community should make another step forward and become smarter, to enjoy to support NT unconditionally like their own children (not all parents do that unfortunately), to live with wins and losses, to enjoy the growth, not only highest quality success, and to build more positive environment. We (including me) have been very hardcore fans and super demanding, super strict. It's time to be smarter, subtler and more matured, we have to learn to value smaller things. It's a must development because bigger countries reached the same level of BB culture that we used to have as an advantage, the competition never was as crazy as now (specially with Canada emerging as a contender). In a global world to control the results is much much harder than previously and medals shouldn't be the only criteria of success anymore. We even witnessing that good BB countries are missing the tournaments and sometimes several ones in a row like Latvia, Croatia, Turkey and so on. That's why it's important to track our own development and to learn how to enjoy NTs little improvements and expect good results without negativity and frustration. It would create much healthier environment, and actually only improve our chances to win something big here and there.

[Shawshank]

Because every basketball expert is reapeating backourt players level is deciding factor in 2020s basketball. And medal podiums of last 5 years support that 100%

Without elite perimeter star nobody won medals recently !


When i see such information and im saying how i see,i dont give shit u like or not.

If team results on medal podium will change I will talk accordingly.Right now for me is clear what is deciding factor in 2020s basketball.



Improvement is done when u judge yourself with the best of your time.Not judging things from diffrent decade as main argument.

Lithuania basketball was higher in 2010s world basketball map compared where Lithuania basketball is in 2020s in world basketball map.


That doesnt mean LTU 2010s was more tallented than 2020s NT.But in that era 2010 players was achieving better results,because for that time that level was good enough.

Tallent from LTU 2010s also unlikely would win medals in 2020s basketball.



Final results depends= 50% of our own level and 50% of your opponents level. Opponents in 2020s in my opinion is clearly better.

I see 9-10 Tony Parkers calibre on perimeter in fiba 2020s compared to only 3-4 Tony Parkers calibre in 2010s decade in fiba tournaments.

[Straight forward]

You don't get it, don't you? I don't disagree that individually strong guards are game changers today. I disagree that repeating 100 times the same trivial point that every school boy understands now is not stupid, do you get it? Stop it, 20 times repeating that in a row is enough. You are debating with ghosts that you create in your head.

In my opinion FIBA basketball became so competitive that even having elite perimeter players can't guarantee you anything. Doncic can't reach medals anymore, he doesn't have good enough team. Larkin couldn't lead pretty talented Turkish team to medals. Serbia with Micic and Bog failed it in 2019 and so on. Simply FIBA competition became super deep. There's like 12-14 teams that can fight for top spots generally. Previously it wasn't the case. There was bigger gap between top contenders and better teams. So now even having elite guards don't guarantee you anything and off course it's even harder to win something without them. That's why I say we have to learn to enjoy smaller things as NT cause even when we'll have elite guards, it will be extremely difficult to win something cause it's a big gamble these days, many teams can beat each other.

The way I see it, FIBA basketball became much deeper, like every team has some NBA players and so on, but when it comes to those top elite players, world class players, I don't think FIBA is better now. Parker, Dragic, Manu, Rubio, Mills > Doncic, SGA, Murray, Schroder, Wiggins, or it's equal at best.

To be honest outside Slovenia (Doncic) and Canada (SGA, Murray, Wiggins) there's no top tier level guards today. So you just need to avoid Canada and USA not to get some sort of guard freak or freaks (Doncic has too crappy team around him and to me now Slovenia doesn't seem too scary). The same Schroder is just a random decent player in the NBA, good bench piece, Bogdanovic basically too. At the beginning of 2000s you get Serbia with Stojakovic, Argentina with Manu, France with Parker, Germany with Dirk (who was playing like 7 feet guard generally), or Spain with Pau (and Pau, IMO, was better fit to FIBA than Jokic and Giannis are). In terms of the deadliest individuals FIBA was superior previously. But today it's deeper, NTs are filled with solid NBA role players and good EL players and that makes the competition super deep. Previously NTs used to be more reliable on one superstar, now there's a bunch of teams who are super deep, but without All- NBA material. That's the difference.

BTW, speaking about Star power, about word class material, Lithuania isn't in the worst situation heading forward. Sabonis is 4th best European in the NBA, and All NBA guy, and we potentially getting another ALL NBA material in Buzelis. So potentially LTU may have 2 All NBA pieces in 2027 WC and 2028 OG. Specially the key is Buzelis who is generally a perimeter player. For example I don't see who is next Spaniard as All NBA guy after Gasol. They don't have such material generally.

In my opinion our chances to have very good team in the future are pretty great, specially looking retrospectively from LTU BB history We have special generation coming in terms of depth. I think it will be crazy deep wave of talent (EL talent primarily). Add Buzelis and Sabonis as star power to that depth and you get potentially very nice picture. If Buzelis doesn't pan out into FIBA star or superstar, we may lack that world class game changer potentially. Some-one who can truly make a difference with exceptional talent, as SGA did in WC 2023.

[arturcia]

I think it's time to change approach to teams selection. It's better to take young and hungry studs rather old useless scrubs. Guys like Kariniauskas, Normantas, Žukauskas, Maldūnas or even Dimša and Bendžius should not be nowhere near NT. Coaches must take 7-8 proven players and add 4-5 young guys. This would make interesting combination of experience and youth.
For example our experienced core can be this:
PG Jokubaitis
SG Grigonis
SF Brazdeikis, Butkevičius
PF Sedekerskis, Kuzminskas
C Sabonis, Valančiūnas

Add young guys like those:
PG Marčiulionis
SG Rubštavičius, Sirvydis
C Tubelis

But there is one big problem. Next summer team will have so little time to prepare for qualifiers, so again there will be bunch of so called "experienced" shity LKL players in NT

[Straight forward]

I think it's time to change approach to teams selection. It's better to take young and hungry studs rather old useless scrubs. Guys like Kariniauskas, Normantas, Žukauskas, Maldūnas or even Dimša and Bendžius should not be nowhere near NT. Coaches must take 7-8 proven players and add 4-5 young guys. This would make interesting combination of experience and youth.
For example our experienced core can be this:
PG Jokubaitis
SG Grigonis
SF Brazdeikis, Butkevičius
PF Sedekerskis, Kuzminskas
C Sabonis, Valančiūnas

Add young guys like those:
PG Marčiulionis
SG Rubštavičius, Sirvydis
C Tubelis

But there is one big problem. Next summer team will have so little time to prepare for qualifiers, so again there will be bunch of so called "experienced" shity LKL players in NT

This Olympic cycle we can generally forget about it. Maksvytis clearly showed that he would rather hire any mediocre scrub, take Cizauskas from 5th or whatever French league if necessary, but won't be an architect of the NT improvement plan. We didn't win anything in 2022, 2023 and wasted 4 positions at least (well, Kariniauskas had one good game against USA I give him some credit for it, but it was one day joy which didn't impact the tournament's outcome). When he won't have any at least semi-serious substitute for Jokubaitis at 1 in 2024 it will be the consequence of this attitude. I just hope that Tubelis joins NT in 2024, at least that would be a step forward. Overall I treat this Olympic cycle as the total waste so far. We had talent that we could develop and draw closer to the NT, but we didn't move a finger. When federation made a move and organized reserve NT camp, Maksvytis simply didn't care even to give Maciulionis a slightest chance. The key game came and Kariniauskas had nice bagel in the statistics...and Serbian perimeter players just were slicing our defense as the bread for breakfast. I don't know how we became a basketball province, but that's what happens when you hire provincials who have no time to even work with the NT. It's on federation too. I have no idea how our basketball management became so tragic. Ever since 2019 when Adomaitis retired it's total chaos and np signs of any real deal personality who can handle this process. It's a big shame. Balciunas made a big mistake when he made NT a bitch of Zalgiris and allowed Maksvytis to skip windows and to care a little fuck (no time anyway, he can barely survive Zalgiris games mentally) about the whole pyramid of LTU basketball. Permanent crisis of LTU coaching continues and like it wouldn't be enough our federation is sucking balls ever since 2019. That's what really frustrating.

[Shawshank]

NT fans and federation should be grateful that euroleague coach agreed to work without holiday,he will say bye after olympic summer

NT team need Maksvytis more than euroleague coach need to work in summers without real holiday.


Next coach will be from LKL and will be simply weaker coach in all areas

In japan working coach with 9th place in 2017 and 2019 9th place finishes did worse job with NT and didnt beat no strong teams


Maksvytis 2022-2023 > Adomaitis 2017-2019


I dont see who federation gonna hire in 2025 that wouldnt become simply worse compared to Maksvytis

Federation head Gedvilas repeated head coach must be lithuanian and bla bla ...that is very old school mindset,but its other conversation.

[Straight forward]

Kurtinaitis was free for example. He potentially could work full time NT coach, or at the very least wouldn't skip FIBA windows.

Kazlauskas was able to operate as the head of the whole pyramid, Adomaitis was at least trying to do that (and he was brilliant in windows). I don't get that feeling from Maksvytis. He never talked about Olympic cycle. He never showed that he cares about the future, always looking how to survive now and tries to do that with mediocre pieces as the end of the bench. And that never works, but our mediocre coaches keep repeating "we can't go with youngsters". Why you can't? We constantly lose with those mediocrities.

Your comparison is artificial cause 2018-2019 NT<<<2022-2003 NT. Maksvytis had much better team. Adomaitis lost only one game that he truly had to win, but it still was more or less 50/50. It's the game against Greece. Maksvytis in 2022 lost to Slovenia who i think wasn't stronger and later it was only obvious (as Bosnia beat them and Poland knocked them out). Maksvytis got some credit for beating USA, that's all. Overall the result is trash.

Another thing. Adomaitis didn't miss a single young player who could be integrated to the NT. There was no prospects, literally at that time. It was slightly too soon for Jokubaitis in 2019. While Maksvytis missed or ignored tons of talents and he didn't care. He ignored Sirvydis in 2022, cut Sedekerskis, in 2023 cut Tubelis, D. Giedraitis, ignored Marciulionis and generally Rubstavicius (who could receive direct ticket to the camp basically). There's tons of talent now around NT now, but Maksvytis is not a person who can properly control this process and foster NT to the most optimal improvement path. Specially it was seen that Maksvytis doesn't understand the issue of NTs when he let go Marciulionis. Not only that we lack true facilitators and creative guys after Jokuvaitis, but Maksvytis didn't understand that without stud guards defensively in perimeter and athletic guys you won't go far these days. I have zero doubt that Kazlauskas could had been testing Marciulionis and Velicka heavily and no doubt we see Marciulionis in the main camp.

The way NT culture is handled recently is something like this: Kazlauskas<Adomaitis<Maksvytis. We getting worse and worse. Now we have a coach who makes a joke of the NT with Cizauskases and Maldunases and literally has no time or wish to control all the processes of the NT. It's a dead end basically. I never thought we would look so amateurish. I believe Maksvytis never mentioned a word Olympic cycle a single time in 2 years since he's a head coach. That says a lot.