Lithuanian NT 2016 Olympics

[Straight forward]

I'm not worried or disappointed at all. Kazlauskas did very well, but the change of coaches are positive outcome most of the times. Also, even Kazlauskas is not perfect and he was walking on the thin line in all tournaments. Sometimes new coach finds new reserves and new alternatives, f.e. our backourt really couldn't get any worse trying out Gecevičius as 4th, 5th guard, he could be at least tried again. Also, what if new identity and not this slow, academic basketball fits better for NT? 4 years passed, it's time for a new coach and I would go with Kurtinaitis or Jasikevičius.

[LuDux]

Kurtinaitis indeed would be the best option now IMO. But he stated lot of times that he won't mix club job with NT and he recently signed 2 years deal with Cantu. Another thing is that he doesn't like this new FIBA system, all that qualification games windows and etc. it doesn't match with the way he sees himself working as NT coach.

1+1 apparently and club owner appears to be in legal trouble

I guess one of current assistants should coach next summer and permanent coach starting with 2019 WC qualifications

[Hepcat]

4 of 8 best PGs of all time are white in Stockton, Nash, Bob Cousy, Jason Kidd.

What about Bob Cousy and John Havlicek? Where would you say they fir among the greats?

[Hepcat]

Except Adas in 2014 everybody generally failed (Adas failed this summer as well)....

Fail? Looking at the minutes of playing time, Coach Kazlauskas didn't give Juškevičius the opportunity at the Olympics to even take the test!

[Mindozas]

I'm not worried or disappointed at all. Kazlauskas did very well, but the change of coaches are positive outcome most of the times. Also, even Kazlauskas is not perfect and he was walking on the thin line in all tournaments. Sometimes new coach finds new reserves and new alternatives, f.e. our backourt really couldn't get any worse trying out Gecevičius as 4th, 5th guard, he could be at least tried again. Also, what if new identity and not this slow, academic basketball fits better for NT? 4 years passed, it's time for a new coach and I would go with Kurtinaitis or Jasikevičius.

You would go, but the main question is - will they go??? From what I know neither of them is willing to now... So it's easy to kick one out, but quite hard to find a decent replecement who would agree to take his place. That's exactly what is worryin'

[LuDux]

Lesser new coaches usually do well first year, much worse next, and are replaced next year. So, medal in '17, no medal in '18 and new coach in '19

[Modis]

You would go, but the main question is - will they go??? From what I know neither of them is willing to now... So it's easy to kick one out, but quite hard to find a decent replecement who would agree to take his place. That's exactly what is worryin'

You know what everything is all about money at the end of the day, also i am quite confident Sabas will talk him in.

[auris1]

It doesn't have to be 4 year contract ,though .
Federation could sign Kurtinaitis just for one tournament (2017 ) ,maybe with an option to extend if he does well and both parties are willing.
After the tournament is over , with a new qualifying system in place we can go from there .
In this scenario ,Kurtis gets to be a head coach of our NT for at least one tournament (that's he deserves ,for sure, plus that tournament does not mean anything ,really ) , and then federation can make a decision regarding the future without that much of the pressure.
Also -
do you realize that Kurtinaitis in only 6 years younger than Kazlauskas ?
He is not going to get that many opportunities in the future .

[Mindozas]

You know what everything is all about money at the end of the day

No, not when we talk about NT coach job. Butautas was getting 57k LTL per year, Kemzura 60k per year (5k a month), Kazlauskas signed a deal in 2012 for just little bit over 4k LTL per month. Some LKL bench players gets more

[Hepcat]

Kurtis is also quite flexible in his offensive schemes and young talented guys will no longer be afraid to improvise on court

Also, what if new identity and not this slow, academic basketball fits better for NT?

I really enjoyed the fast-paced basketball Team Lietuva once played such as at the 2010 World Championships.

[Hepcat]

Coach Kazlauskas yesterday was quoted as saying that for the first time in four years Team Lietuva just wasn't physically prepared and that was the team's main problem.

I don't understand. What does he mean? How could the team not have been physically prepared? And whose fault could that have been other than that of the coaching staff? Thoughts?

[LuDux]

Coach Kazlauskas yesterday was quoted as saying that for the first time in four years Team Lietuva just wasn't physically prepared and that was the team's main problem.

I don't understand. What does he mean? How could the team not have been physically prepared? And whose fault could that have been other than that of the coaching staff? Thoughts?

They thought they can archieve everything by talent alone

[remigijus]

Coach Kazlauskas yesterday was quoted as saying that for the first time in four years Team Lietuva just wasn't physically prepared and that was the team's main problem.

I don't understand. What does he mean? How could the team not have been physically prepared? And whose fault could that have been other than that of the coaching staff? Thoughts?

yea it was strange to hear that from kazlauskas you are going in most important tournament with no physicall preparation no suprise that team in the last games was like dead already....

[Straight forward]

Kazlauskas simply meant that there was no time for proper physical preparation because Olympics starts at August and not September. Some players came to the NT at the time when preparation games already started. But this argument is pretty lame because all the teams had the same conditions, some even worse (qualifying teams). Yeah, preparation wasn't optimal, but so remember how Pau looked at preparation stage? I think NT overdid with preparation this time - too many games, too many camps, team kinda peaked too soon and didn't have enough reserves for second phase of Olympic tournament. Another, I feel this team didn't have that wild hunger as in previous tournaments. Third, JV sucked and no-one expected that. We like it or not, he is the key for NT success and he played horrible. A loss of D-Mo now looks even more vital.

[Shawshank]

For me why this teams totaly cracked was mainly because Spain ripped our hearts out in that game...And we didnt recover.Game versus Argentina was best Lithuanias 40min game in Olympics if we would have played like that we would have give ourself atleast a chance in 1/4 game surely...But after we got our hearts ripped off by spaniards,all other minuses went together bad preparation scheduale, ridiculous week in Argentina,horrible JV play and so on .

about physicall preparation i believe coaching staff believed that we will have hard time in group ( and risking take 4-5 th place in that group),so they gambled and put best players form at the start,this gamble let us to get good draw for the playoofs,but our form was getting worse and worse,when others were improving game by game.If we would have been in other group,you could see before Olympics we will win against china and venesuala in any form and we could go not with optimal form from the start,but in group B there were no easy game and you cant do what Serbia did. The only Spaniards was improving in group B ,but they were risking not even making 1/4.Other B teams were declining game by game.For getting in better shape game by game group A was alot better situation.Ofcourse now its only an excuses,but when you needed to do a plan before Olympics and what form you will have to be in,coaches couldnt ignore that.

But again main reason that everything fallen apart was game versus Spain and how we lost, from that point everything looked very bad.