2024 Lithuanian NT

[Straight forward]

"If I will be healthy, invited and needed, why not?" That's Grigonis answer. Nice to see it. Whish him luck.

Much stronger and IMO strongest guard Jokubaitis in 2024 at 1 and Grigonis 2 is something good enough to have serious hopes to get to Olympics. Specially if Sabonis, Sedekerskis, Butkevicius will be there. It's only pity that Brazdeikis ended up in Oly, this way he only stunts his development.

[Shawshank]

That Grigonis and all other who wasnt playing in 2023 will want to play in Olympic summer is not a secret

Marius started answering question: if im healthy,if im gonna reach summer healthy sure i would like to play.


Video how he answers that question he himself is very carefull because he knows better than anyone in what shape his back is.

Grigonis for NT by importance of his skillset is top 3 player.

[Straight forward]

I think today it's hard to win medals without good defense unless you have some sureal offense. LTU at the moment doesn't have either. But one thing has to be said. We can be really good shooting team with Grigonis coming back. We already were the best three point shooting team in WC 2023 with 42,2% (Latvia second with 42,1%). Grigonis is definitely the best shooter in the country. He can have good % with multiple attempts. The only problem in 2022 EB was that he didn't have much luck in 4th quarters. IDK if Jokubaitis and Brazdeikis can sustain their great numbers that they showed in WC 2022, but with Grigonis I would expect Lithuania to remain around 40% from downtown which is elite. From recent highlights I see nice chemistry between Sloukas and Grigonis and we can see the same with Jokubaitis. In 2022 Jokubaitis still wasn't there exactly. Now he's a dominant slasher and passer and he will create for Grigonis much much more than he did in 2022. So offensively I can see really good things. Defensively we would improve with Butkevicius and Ulanovas in, or even Butkevicius and Sedekerskis alone already solve many problems, but I would like to see a lock down guard defender coming from the bench.

Can't wait to see our main opponents fighting for the ticket. If we will pack A roster, offensively we'll have good upside, and shots better fall in that key game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GU352bWkR8&ab_channel=EurohoopsTV

[Shawshank]

Dimsa will be that good guard defender of the bench + that will make wide open jumpshot.

Butkevicius usually defends all best perimeters players either way , Sedekerskis will defend best bigs like in 2023.

and if also +Ulanovas LTU NT would have most good defenders (even 4 ) since Kazlauskas years.


Defensively Grigonis would defend SF ,Arnas put on best opponnets guard and Jokubaitis whats left



I fear way more which LTU guard gonna score on switch all defences that all teams plays in 4 querters .

Because opponnets nba guards will score doesnt matter we gonna play Valanciunas or Sabonis as center.They gonna hunt them until they will get that switch in last minutes.


Lineup like Sedekerskis at C,Ulanovas at PF ,Grigonis as SF,Arnas as SG and Jokubaitis exist and im would ask question what is chances Maksvytis will play game endings without nr 1 and nr 2 lithuanian players of last decade ?

When i will see it i will believed

[Straight forward]

Dimsa is a solid defender, but that's all. Giedraitis for example is better than him, he is pretty much a lock down defender, but yet can't really deliver offensively. I'm waiting till Giedraitis or Marciulionis (or both) will be ready to be role players for the NT at both ends. Then we'll have lock down guard defenders or at least one would already be impactful. Butkevicius is more like 2-3 defender. You can throw him against small agile guard, but he's a bit vulnerable in these situations. So ATM we don't have true guard elite defender that we could throw on Bogdanovic, Schroder and such.

What a beast Sedekerskis is though. Another 19eff, 12rbs. He is grabbing 9.6rbs per game as a forward. The best in EL. My goodness. With him at 4 and Sabonis at 5 we should be the best rebounding team in the world (4th in WC).

Regarding offense vs switch all, it's Jokubaitis in the first place and then Brazdeikis, Grigonis (Dimsa, Ulanovas). That's how I see it. Jokubaitis should make the right read and take the worst defender in front of him and attack him. It will be seen how much Jokubaitis will add in one year, but he always adds some, without any setbacks so far. If we will see box and 1 defense in 2024, this time focus will be on Jokubaitis. It's a bit like 2000 situation. NT just reached new level once Jasikevicius broke out in the knock out stage. We'll see if Jokubaitis is ready for that (will be a year or so younger than Saras was in 2000). We have to play smart. Realistically speaking even 2000s golden generation didn't have ISO beast. It was about great ball movement and great shooting. BB changed till that a bit, that's also true.

[Straight forward]

Lineup like Sedekerskis at C,Ulanovas at PF ,Grigonis as SF,Arnas as SG and Jokubaitis

Yes, that would be legit defensive line-up. Grigonis is smart defender going against bigger and slower opponents. He cooked Ulanovas defensively and overall his positioning is really good against bigger guys, so 3 is a good spot for him. Jokubaitis defense is slightly underrated. He's not as bad as some portrait here (we know who ). I hope Maksvytis will unleash that surely if all pieces available.

PS: But for the perfect picture defensively you need Giedraitis or Marciulionis level defense at 1 nevertheless.

[Shawshank]

ts offcial Lithuania.Spain,Slovenia,Latvia is tier 1 and we wont play those teams in olympic qualification.

Critical thing of draw now will be we gonna get Greece/Italy from tier 2 or Brasil/Poland.


Playing Greece with Giannis in athens i would consider LTU underdogs 40/60

vs Italy i would give us 60/40 chance

dangerous dark horses from lower tiers is Croatia and Bahamas with their 3-4 nba players.

Not beating remaining teams would big time failure.

[Straight forward]

Croatia in the 5th bracket is pretty ridiculous and might be a bummer for some teams. They kicked out Turkey from qualification, they still have elite players as Saric and Bogdanovic, some prospects.

I don't afraid of Italy. I respect them, but don't afraid. With A team Lithuania is clear favorite against them. A Lithuania against A Greece, now that's most interesting. Giannis present Greece is a team to avoid for us.

Nevertheless, even Greece is not so uncomfortable opponent as Slovenia was in 2021 with rested Doncic, shots dropping Cancar and Tobbey. The way I see it, Lithuania will be much better team in 2024 than it was in 2021 assuming we get A roster. I can't say the same about Slovenia, Greece, Spain (probably). Our chances to make Olympics are good. Only if we face Giannis present Greece we'll be underdogs (slight), but better team on the paper than the rest that we could face.

[Straight forward]

The travesty continues and we have "third" NT coach. Now Zibenas will coach senior NT in next FIBA window. Amazing...Open doors NT... I really didn't think Balciunas will be such a fucking libertine as federation GM...

The only positive is that Zibenas is young and developing coach. Who knows, maybe he can reach the level of a really good coach. His main strength that he is a good communicator and tends to find connection with players. Tends to play rather open BB which suits FIBA basketball. I'm just not sure if he has respectable personality enough, like he might be too soft a bit. Nevertheless Zibenas definitely on the radar long term. Essentially speaking it's between Maksvytis, Jasikevicius and Zibenas for the next cycle if you ask me. One can ask Adomaitis or Kemzura to come back, that would be solid options, but it would be the repetition of mediocrity generally. Maksvytis most likely will choose to continue with Zalgiris after this summer and let's hope so. Overall I treat his 2 years very controversial and essentially disappointing, specially how many close games he lost in 2022 and how he ignored real talent for scrubs. So from new options it's either Jasikevicius, or Zibenas. Luckily this window is like a little investment for Zibenas looking to next Olympic cycle if Jasikevicius again will decline invitation.

From the roster, if EL players won't be available (will they?), I want to see Tubelis, Sirvydis, Jogela, Normantas, Radzevicius, Masiulis, Velicka, I. Sargiunas, Kariniauskas, Zemaitis, Orelikas, Kuzminskas, Echodas and if Lelevicius will show progress to invite him as that "truly young" future player. Something like that should do it to win against Poland and Estonia. Very respectable opponents. If EL players will be available then it's another talk and specially Iggy would love to have some massive minutes.

[Straight forward]

The draw is good. Italy and PR are sneaky opponents, but you simply can't ask anything better.

Tubelis sending best wishes to Maksvytis. 26eff kinda dude...meh...give me rock solid Maldunas with 9eff.

Seriously, Maksvytis has been total trash via roster selection. Literally no-one would outclass him by bringing scrubs to the NT and ignoring real talent.

[Shawshank]

Good draw for Lithuania

Beat Puertucio and their wild fans + unpredictable Italy thats the road to Olympics. Fair possible mission, surely ltu fans cant complain.

We clearly can see some other NTs got more chalenging roads.

Pozzeco openly said Italy would have beat Lithuania in 2023 1/4 .Now he will have his chance.


Lithuania NT wasnt choosing oppenents in 2023 and maybe thats why sport gods didnt sended LTU to Athens and sended Bahamians to Spain

[Straight forward]

Time to set new streak of Olympic appearances. Not winning this qualification would be fiasko, no other way around. A must win. No excuses justified. Besides, I always like LTU NT when they play away from our fans. Simply it's the best case scenario. Not even our fans can spoil things this time.

[Serbian_Layup]

Time to set new streak of Olympic appearances. Not winning this qualification would be fiasko, no other way around. A must win. No excuses justified. Besides, I always like LTU NT when they play away from our fans. Simply it's the best case scenario. Not even our fans can spoil things this time.

I wouldn't call it a fiasco. Italy will be pretty good. Darius Thompson will be playing for them and he is much better playmaker than both Mannion and Spissu, which will give them big depth and more versatility in the backcourt. It's 50/50 game IMO.

[Shawshank]

Italy was top 8 in 2021,2022,2023 their recent results is of top 10 NT.

Lithuania is slight favourite 60/40 in my opinion .Looking at players,but again if Italians indeed is naturalising top 20 euroleague scorer Darius Thompson its simply 50/50 game i agree.

Thompson would give extra offensive gear to Italians,similiar to what Evans does for Zalgiris.

In today's basketball which team has best guard on the floor is critical factor especially in last 5 minutes.


But compare to Slovenia 2021 and possible opponents in 2024 like Greece with Giannis or Bahamas this is good draw for ltu from that point.

If Serbia lost twice to Italy playoffs games no doubt it shows Italy is very dangerous top 10level team.

[Straight forward]

I wouldn't call it a fiasco. Italy will be pretty good. Darius Thompson will be playing for them and he is much better playmaker than both Mannion and Spissu, which will give them big depth and more versatility in the backcourt. It's 50/50 game IMO.

Well, it will depend a lot whenever Thomspson will play and how much solidity it will add to the opportunistic style of Italian basketball. It's a very respectable and extremely dangerous team, specially knowing that their young gun guards are growing (Spissu, Pajola, Mannion). But Italy had some major up and downs in recent years (just as they always did as NT), In EB 2022 they lost to Ukraine for example. Lithuania never showed such chokes, aside last game of WC against Latvia which was ugly and unexpected, but obviously linked with motivation (last meaningless game). In WC Italy again managed to beat Serbia, bet barely survived against DOM REP, they lost to Slovenia, Latvia and USA totally trashed them (while LTU famously beat USA). Italy is definitely not as reliable and consistent NT as Lithuania. They might have deeper successful streaks because of their hardcore offensive style which makes them very dangerous in one game match-ups, but they don't have elite bigs. CAT dropped big numbers against them and at least in NBA Sabonis is a better player than CAT. Galinari is washed out already pretty much, offensively he still can be good in FIBA, just as Fontechio, but defensively he will be liability as most Italian players. We have feasting Sedekerskis at 4 which can cement our defense and along with Sabonis and hopefully Tubelis (if our coach after all have any brains which I really doubt knowing his atrocious roster selection in recent two years), we can establish very tough, athletic frontline. We can dominate the boards with Sabonis, Sedekerskis are elite rebounders (and hopefully Valanciunas with fairly limited role). The key against Italy is to establish well organized defense and having players like Sedekerskis, Butkevicius, maybe even Ulanovas, will give us more flexibility. Lastly if we will have Jokubaitis, Brazdeikis, Grigonis, it will be the deepest LTUs backcourt at least since 2012, IMO. Jokubaitis has a chance to run the team at complete elite level already, IMO. He always makes a step forward and he already was 15,1eff kind of player in WC 2023.

Italy's best player is Fontecchio now probably. Obvioysly Thomson and Galinary add a lot, but overall I really have Lithuania as seperior and more fundamentally sound consistent. Even really messed up LTU last year beat USA. Against Serbia Lithuania lacked a bit of gass too, specially emotionally. That has to be said. Serbia was better team surely, but LTU had more in the tank than it showed in that game. We shot the threes very well. Adding Grigonis wouldn't hurt that. Maybe from completely neutral stand of point one can say it's more or less 50/50 (which I would still make LTU slight favorite TBH), but I say it would be fiasco, because it's just too rock solid road to Olympics and Lithuania is Olympic freak. We are the top NT in Olympics after USA historically. Not Serbia, not Spain, but Lithuania. 7th consecutive appearances since 1992, three medals, 5 consecutive semifinals. We did it in much more difficult fashion, like fighting in Venezuela surrounded with antagonistic local crowd and having semi-injured Kleiza as the best player, or beating Serbia in 2015 semis and grabbing direct ticket. For Lithuania Olympic tournament is a very big big thing and now we are even slight favorites of the tournament. A loss is fiasco from that point. It adds to it that we lost a lot of very close games in 2019-2023 against elite teams, better than Italy (Australia, France, Slovenia, Germany, France, Spain, Serbia). We must win this one.