Lithuanian NT 2017

[Straight forward]

Since the news relate exactly next year's NT - it's time for a new thread I think.

National team will have a new coach. Kazlauskas didn't resign with the NT and I think it's a right decision, he needs rest in the first place. Also, it's time for new coach to bring his own ideas how to utilize current material of talent. It will be interesting to see if we had some reserves or we will value even more what Kazlauskas did last 4 years. Besides, there's plenty of new players who might make NT as a rookies and some players to pplay much bigger roles than they did in recent years. New Olympic cycle, new page of NT and it's good to start it with a new coach. Most likely it will be Kurtinaitis.

[Mindozas]

Kurtinaitis, Krapikas, Jasikevicius, Adomaitis, Kemzura are all on the list, maybe some more which names I just forgot or weren't mentioned. I had this converstation with LKF guy back in the beginning of this month and was in a hurry. Kazlauskas was still #1 there tho, but even if it's sad that he is leaving, but it's understandable. He really got tired, money wasn't an issue at all, he earned millions in China, so he doesn't care about it at all now, atleast not when LT NT is involved.
Now I hope it'll be Kurtinaitis. He is a bit controversial, but I simply can't see who would suit more now

[Shawshank]

Kazlauskas did the right desicion not resign, we need diffrent voice in loockeroom after 4 years.For me is pity that lots of those idiotic fans we have now remember kazlauskas and this olympic team only as a team that lost by 50 points...everybody forgets silver medals and semifinal in world cup all comments are about 50 pts game...brainless fans...

I very hope it will be Kurtinaitis...if not we will be in trouble, knowing our attitude toward foreigner coaches.

[Svajunas]

I know that this would not be a popular Choice but the team played very beautiful With Kemzura.

[Mindozas]

I know that this would not be a popular Choice but the team played very beautiful With Kemzura.

Under Sireika 2003-2004 it played even more beautiful But in both cases coaches weren't the key in that I'm afraid, even tho Kemzura is not that bad in strategy and overall in ok coach what comes to NTs, but I can hardly see him more than assistant one, where he would be perfect, with the same Kurtinaitis f.e.

[LuDux]

Garastas Era 1979-1996
Kazlauskas Era 1997-2016

I wonder if people expected Kazlauskas to last that long?

[Shawshank]

Talking about other candidates i suprised that so many says adomatis overall...he is training my home team but im not very big fan of him.Yes neptunas won silver again, but lost so many regular season games last season as never before in last 4 years, at one point like 5 or 6 games in a row and many fans wanted his resignation in klaipeda...than ofcourse he beat rytas and everybody forgot it.How adomaitis coached really strong lkl students in universiada twice wasnt anything impresive either.After maskvytis in adomaitis many believes neptunas team is controlled too much, not allowing freedom at all like in previuos couple years, ale young kazlauskas version.Everything starts from defence in adomaitis teams.If do not like kazlauskas style you wont like Adomaitis too.

[Straight forward]

I don't see Adomaitis as a head coach. He is not proven enough, not respectable enough. As Shawshank said, his Neptunas' career is very inconsistent as well.

Favourite is off course Kurtinaitis and I liked how he was able to make Gecevičius to look like a borderline star guard in Rytas and he was able to mobilize, glue, combine into unity, rather mediocre Rytas to a very decent team. I like that he is able to find players' best qualities and to give freedom for the players who requires it. However, as a person he always seemed to be a guy who might say some stupid things, something fishy about him any time I see him, seems to be relied on emotions too much, wouldn't be surprised to see some strange roster options if he hired. So Kurtinaitis is the best choice after Kazlauskas, but at the moment I can't say I trust him completely and would be moderate happy to see him.

If I would have to choose from others - it would be between Jasikevicius, Krapikas, Maskoliunas. Any of those seem to be as a better choice than Adomaitis.

[Mindozas]

Everything starts from defence in adomaitis teams.If do not like kazlauskas style you wont like Adomaitis too.

Kazlauskas chose this system not cause he is defensive minded coach, but cause this generation lacks offensive talent. It's not his style, it's how he saw this team succeeding. During his career Kazlauskas' teams played very different and succeeded playin' different. And If nothing will change much in our talents pool, we'll need similar philosophy to succeed again, I'm afraid. I hate this kind of bball, but nothing much to choose from. And if Adomaitis is young version of current Kazlauskas system - so its surely not the worst option, the same like goin' with Krapikas/Maskoliunas, former did similar things with Zalgiris after spending some time with Kazlauskas in NT and it looked not that bad. Quite ugly for my liking, but not bad.
Well, that doesn't make any of these coaches my favorite one, I'm still with Kurtinaitis as headcoach and hopefully he won't fail with his assistants crew

Favourite is off course Kurtinaitis and I liked how he was able to make Gecevičius to look like a borderline star guard in Rytas and he was able to mobilize, glue, combine into unity, rather mediocre Rytas to a very decent team. I like that he is able to find players' best qualities and to give freedom for the players who requires it. However, as a person he always seemed to be a guy who might say some stupid things, something fishy about him any time I see him, seems to be relied on emotions too much, wouldn't be surprised to see some strange roster options if he hired. So Kurtinaitis is the best choice after Kazlauskas, but at the moment I can't say I trust him completely and would be moderate happy to see him.

Yeah, Kurtis loves to talk and do it openly, sometimes provocative, but finally who cares about that if he'd be able to lead team to some success. I guess it all that matters and actually I'm not worried at all about some strange roster options. Mazutis was always Butautas' darling, then Jomantas addition wasn't really that strange, he was doin' really good back then, even on EL level

[Shawshank]

Mindozas by point was not only about defence,but like Kazlauskas,Adomaitis likes that everything would be by the plan,very little freedom in offence he gives to the players.You can see Adomaitis learnt alot from Kazlauskas and they are still very close friends to this day.Maybe that good overall result wise with limited tallent,but playingt style will be not very watchable again.Neptunas with very similiar players played with moskvytis alot difrentely than under Adomaitis .Neptunas plays very predictable schematical offence these days.I see alot of same things in Kazlauskas and Adomaitis coaching styles.But Adomaitis is the bad version of Kazlauskas right now.But his close relations with him,would not be a suprise seeing Adomaitis hired...but that would a be pity...Because Kurtinaitis is obviuos best candidate,but his harsh remarks even on federation job can do him a bad favour...

But i my mind there is no question who is best option to change Kazlauskas right now.

[Mindozas]

Mindozas by point was not only about defence,but like Kazlauskas,Adomaitis likes that everything would be by the plan,very little freedom in offence he gives to the players.You can see Adomaitis learnt alot from Kazlauskas and they are still very close friends to this day.Maybe that good overall result wise with limited tallent,but playingt style will be not very watchable again.Neptunas with very similiar players played with moskvytis alot difrentely than under Adomaitis .Neptunas plays very predictable schematical offence these days.I see alot of same things in Kazlauskas and Adomaitis coaching styles.But Adomaitis is the bad version of Kazlauskas right now.But his close relations with him,would not be a suprise seeing Adomaitis hired...but that would a be pity...Because Kurtinaitis is obviuos best candidate,but his harsh remarks even on federation job can do him a bad favour...

But i my mind there is no question who is best option to change Kazlauskas right now.

Regarding Adomaitis. He has common things with Kazlas, he knows how to reach the results. There might be up and downs during the season, some ugly basketball, spectators doesn't really like that, but at the end who cared about that when he brought Juventus to bronze in 2015 or Neptunas to final in 2016. And he did that by outclassing his direct rivals and preparing his teams very well for series. I like such qualities of him, he can analyse, he knows how to win. Of course that doesn't mean he is already proven coach to lead NT, just that he is decent LKL level coach. Overall work in NT and club are very different things. Also I don't know if he is that flexible coach like Kazlas is. Again, Kazlauskas gave more freedom when he had players to play so, remember how he coached Zalgiris or NT 15+ years back when he had lot of creative players led by Edney or Saras. He let the team run, create, play a lot transition and didn't have problems with that. I don't know if Adomaitis could do this succesfully tho, he basically never had a chance/resources to play open, offensive bball. So far I only saw Ewing in Neptunas or Broadus in Juventus having lot of freedom and it worked out, but that's another level and only future will tell how Adomaitis could cope with that.
Regarding best option, I already stated my opinion too, it's not different from yours, so all this Adomaitis stuff are just talks, nothing more from my side. I'm not tryin' to convince that he should be headcoach of NT, atleast not now

[Straight forward]

Kazlauskas had such a vision of current NT and he succeeded, but it's not like this current core wasn't successful before playing different style. So yeah Kazlauskas did a nice job, but it's wasn't the only way NT could go. I think that Kemzura got really unlucky that he never had a chance to play again with exactly the same team as 2010 + one more solid big because I find that team as the best NT after 2008. What I'm trying to say - we can play much different style than we played in recent years if we choose to. It's an option and not necessary doomed to failure. So I'm very anxious to see what new coach will try to do. In my opinion we have a very runnable team and Kazlauskas' vision kinda covered that a little bit (again not blaming Jonas here). Assuming all the players will be available - who are the key players of NT today? JV, D-Mo, Sabonis, Kuzminskas, Maciulis, Kalnietis. Basically 5 of them want and like to run. If we add Grigonis, Ulanovas, Lekavicius to this picture - we have a very runnable team which would be very decent defensively as well. So I don't think current team is necessary doomed to play slow tempo basketball. Higher tempo give plenty of various options and spontaneous decisions which you can't read, can't prepare for. Not that having 3 great post threats in JV, D-Mo, Domas we shouldn't throw the ball inside, but I expect NT to run more after Kazlauskas era.

[Mindozas]

Kazlauskas had such a vision of current NT and he succeeded, but it's not like this current core wasn't successful before playing different style. So yeah Kazlauskas did a nice job, but it's wasn't the only way NT could go. I think that Kemzura got really unlucky that he never had a chance to play again with exactly the same team as 2010 + one more solid big because I find that team as the best NT after 2008. What I'm trying to say - we can play much different style than we played in recent years if we choose to. It's an option and not necessary doomed to failure. So I'm very anxious to see what new coach will try to do. In my opinion we have a very runnable team and Kazlauskas' vision kinda covered that a little bit (again not blaming Jonas here). Assuming all the players will be available - who are the key players of NT today? JV, D-Mo, Sabonis, Kuzminskas, Maciulis, Kalnietis. Basically 5 of them want and like to run. If we add Grigonis, Ulanovas, Lekavicius to this picture - we have a very runnable team which would be very decent defensively as well. So I don't think current team is necessary doomed to play slow tempo basketball. Higher tempo give plenty of various options and spontaneous decisions which you can't read, can't prepare for. Not that having 3 great post threats in JV, D-Mo, Domas we shouldn't throw the ball inside, but I expect NT to run more after Kazlauskas era.

I don't see a reason why we should've been playin' different this cycle, afterall who could expect us to win 2 medals, be 4th in World Cup and make it directly to Olympics? I think it couldn't be better, especially remembering what I was personally expecting 3-4 years back and each year having lot of doubts. We never were among favorites, but somehow were making there 3 times out of 4. This team was just limited offensively, not only with talent pool compared to previous cycles, but also regarding injuries/missings/bad shape of key players each given year. The biggest blow was obviously missing Kleiza. You remembered 2010 and he was the major difference between now and then. That 2010 was also limited offensivelly, overall speaking, but it had a real Euroepean superstar of that time, true leader, go-to guy, who was in top shape. Give that Kleiza to current team and I'm quite sure this team could've been serious medal contender, offense would look so much fluent.
I can't say about the future tho, none can say how players will develop, what kind of team we'll have. We can dream about all top guns playin', all bein' in best shape, but it rarely happens, probably 2003-2004 was the last time. So I won't try to guess now. 2017 Eurobasket is meaningless, I'm talking more about 2019-2020. Maybe we'll have a roster to play much faster, different, we'll see

[auris1]

2017 Eurobasket is meaningless, ..

How come ? Are you gonna hibernate till 2019 ?

[Mindozas]

How come ? Are you gonna hibernate till 2019 ?

Noooo Of course I'm gonna follow it and cheer for NT, just it's meaningless for World Cup and then Olympic qualification. Olympics is main goal for me (and NT of course) every cycle, so I'm more focused on WC qualies starting right after Eurobasket