2020 Lithuanian NT: in a chase of Olympic dream

[Toruko]

Well that means you have above average EL player and if you are elite NT you do want to build the core among such breed exactly or NBA material.

And also it's Lithuanian NT matters. In 00's we had plenty above average EL players and at least 4 absolutely elite EL players. Today we don't have a single elite EL player and only few above average.

Well there are many variables to have a good nt. The czechs were successful with a champions league core. Its of course important to have good players but good players are not a guarantee for success. The chemistry, good coaching, a run in tournaments and the most important thing a good playmaker.

Lithuanians dont need to worry about their big rotation but play making is still a big problem for any european nt except maybe Serbia. We have to wait for Jokubaitis/Velicka.

[Straight forward]

Well there are many variables to have a good nt. The czechs were successful with a champions league core. Its of course important to have good players but good players are not a guarantee for success. The chemistry, good coaching, a run in tournaments and the most important thing a good playmaker.

Lithuanians dont need to worry about their big rotation but play making is still a big problem for any european nt except maybe Serbia. We have to wait for Jokubaitis/Velicka.

Our ambitions used to be and still are a little bit higher than what Czech Rep was able to show in WC. Great performance, but our goal was to get direct ticket to OG. Such teams as Czech R, current Argentina can make a surprise, but can't contend tournament after tournament. That's where we used to be all 90's, 00's and even in 10's managed to grab three medal collections (even if that's not a good reflection to our true, lower level of the decade). I think this year we had a pretty good team and with some more luck we could even reach out goals, but to be at the sustainable level we truly want to be, we are at least 2 good players away, and one of them should be game finisher all around scorer.

[Straight forward]

BTW, fun fact. We get exactly three medal collections every single decade since 90's. So if we would look bare at medals, we got away with the status quo this decade with way less talented team. However it's a first decade without Olympic medal and that's the best indication where we were in 10's. And to be honest, we underachieved in 90's and 00's.

[Toruko]

LTU hasnt been raising elite player for a long time now and as someone who watched all the youth tournament games there are not many player who seems to have the potential to reach the elite level.

U20 just had Velicka and he hasnt developed as expected
U18 was also very poor in talent except Tubelis who has the potential to be a very good defender but he is still very limited in the offense, horrible ft shooter btw could be a turk in that issue

U16 despite having a bad tournament result has solid guys with Butkus, Kojenets and Murauskas. The last one has the chance to play in the nba.

[Straight forward]

LTU hasnt been raising elite player for a long time now and as someone who watched all the youth tournament games there are not many player who seems to have the potential to reach the elite level.

We don't necessary need many elite players to get were we want to be, but at least few is a must if you want to get to the level where Serbia, Spain, France stand today. We have Sabonis and if we land Brazdeikis home he has an upside to be an elite player in the making, IMO. But, again, the core should consist of at least above average EL players. Here's my projections of upcoming NT players:

1998 Kulboka, Masiulis, Sedekerskis
1999 Brazdeikis
2000 Sirvydis, Jokubaitis, D.Giedraitis

2002 Tubelis, Marciulionis

2004 Murauskas

PS: Velicka and Jogela do not qualify, but damn close to it.

[Straight forward]

We should already stop the myth of JV being the best player of NT already. We had three rough tournaments with such experiment. It hurts NT most importantly and it even hurts JV individually, because he's trying to do things which he can't. JV is treated as an offensive player and he is because he is a huge liability defensively, but I run through the best team's of WC statistics and I could nowhere found a case where the player who is treated the best player of the team (and JV is treated my masses of Lithuanian fans as the best player) would be the 4th player in generating points for the team (points + assists). In most cases the best team generates the most points. USA - Kemba, Spain - Rubio, Serbia - Bog (some would say Jokic is surely best player, but it's pretty obvious Bog is the guy at FIBA and even if Jokic would play center and would bring his best it would be damn hard to beat Bog's 32-36pts, nevertheless Jokic is second in points), France - Fournier (same story here at FIBA, only with Forunier and Gobert), Australia - Mills and so on.
JV is 4th generating points in WC and is the biggest liability defensively. My point is not demoralise or to make JV look bad here, but to give a wake up call to Lithuanian fans and coaches because we have that tendency to rank players by their status, common opinion, benevolence. JV had that huge bubble around him with dominating Youth BB and being NBA top 5 pick. Majority of fans would still think he is destined to lead us to victories and would think I'm absolutely nuts if they would read me here. And that's the huge issue with our BB culture, we have too little analytical and cold blooded mind, even our best coaches seems to have a little bit of this flaw (Kazlauskas treating Maciulis as top 4 performer in 2019 while it's huge contradiction with facts case...). It's the third tournament when JV's p'n'r defence is the main target of opponents and this time it went so obvious that I felt kinda stunned when media didn't even address a single article on this and instead started to right about how JV's generation will take over from now on. How Maksvytis is exactly the guy to coach the team because of that. I say god forbid that, we ain't going nowhere trying to make a hero and a franchise player from JV. JV never was that and never will. Even in 2015 he was a second, third scorer, behind Kalnietis and pretty much the same spot with Maciulis. In 2017 he was a third best points generator after Kalnietis and Kuzminskas. He never was a true standout in NT and never will. We only put our selves into an inferior and very dumb situation, but also get JV frustrated when he knows that huge things from him are expected. I could see this from his body language, he wasn't even too happy when other players went clutch against Australia and he struggled, obviously he's not some nut case, so he carriage himself as a man while being on the bench, but obviously we just put JV into the fire and frustration if we still have that demands for him to be a true standout. He simply doesn't have quickness, all around skills, IQ to be such and never will. Not to take away anything from JV, he still is an elite low post scorer and elite rebounder, but that's only two things that he does well in today's basketball. He still shot the ball with great 64.3% from the field and generated 16-17pts in 23min (4th result in the team), but we should end up with narrative and myth that he's the best, franchise, a guy to go kinda player. He's not and when he is forced to stay on the floor in crunch time bad things happen, we always get more at other end of the flour than he is able to bring offensively. JV is 18-20min player who will bring rebounding and low post scoring and that's it, it's time to stop making anything more from him and demand something which he can't provide. You can't play robotic, slow low post offence for more than 18min because it freezes all other teammates and most importantly we are too vulnerable defensively with JV on the court in contemporary BB. We tried that, it didn't work. Let's stick with the tendencies of conteporary basketball, let JV to be who he is.

[madmax]

"JV can only score and rebound". Right, so the guy is basically excellent at two of the most important aspects of basketball
"JV can't defend at all". False, he's a very good post defender thanks to his length and he forces guards to change their shot trajectories when they try to score over him.

The only thing he's struggling at defensively is p'n'r defense, so you are correct here. But so does every single big man in the world apart from freaks like Anthony Davis maybe...

[Shawshank]

To me today's PF has to do 2 things well. To play mobile defence (ability to step out, switch and rotate) and ability to pass the ball. Those 2 are keys, I can live with the PF who is good at these 2 aspects even if he wouldn't do anything else.

no thats not true for PF.Shooting is must in today basketball.Minimum 4 players on floor should be able to make treeepointers.Best teams even try to put 5 players that can shoot.Thats why Spain and Australia or Argentina was letting gasols,baynes or scola shoot treepointers in such case that puts even best best worlds inside defender Gobert in tough spot defensively...When 5 players can shoot it makes defences job way tougher and open everything else for you.Basketball is moving to place with 5 shooters on the floor .

World cup 2019 was good example where basketball stands today.You can have less tallent, but if you shoot well you can overachieve just playing simple basketball Czech or Argentina examples.

That Our NT team was dead last in made treepointers,our next coach have to think what to do.IT would be very risky go with same game plan as it was in 2019.It can work,but we are dependable that elite opponenets wont have average/good shooting days.Thats bad bet.

We was kinda good even against Aus/Fra with one center and 4 mobile our wings.I want to see that more next summer.

You still can live with 4 players that can shoot and 1center,but even that 1 on best teams atleast tries to shoot.

If you are Usa or France you can compensate that with athletic abilities,if you are white team you must be able to shoot .

ps. what meant about Kuzminskas sure he can play for streaches in pf ,but not all the time like this summer it kills him to defend every time 10kg bigger bodies.Kazlauskas was always putting Kuzminskas in Sf let him feel his offensive and only then suddenly put Valanciunas,Maciulis,Kuzminskas lineup.Thats big diffrence when player play SF-PF and when play only PF.

Im still sure Kuzminskas is best our Sf.And that he didndt play a single minute in such position all summer is ridiculous.

I understand what coach tried to do cover huge hole in pf and Kuz said we all need to sacrifise for teams good,but in the middle of summer Adomaitis was loosing Kuz i wrote here about that i fear it can happen with weak Kuz character.

is one thing to understand why you must do that and other thing to truly accept it.Especially when it hits in your weakest spot over and over again.

[Mindozas]

All the confidence that Kuzminskas gained under Kazlauskas is gone after NBA failure, then making an awful decision and choosing money in Milan. You can tell from his body language that he is lost. Now Olympiacos... a bench player there, most likely another wasted year with tiny roleas Printezis sub, but it seems he is looking just for it nowadays - low ambitions and more cash

[Straight forward]

All the confidence that Kuzminskas gained under Kazlauskas is gone after NBA failure, then making an awful decision and choosing money in Milan. You can tell from his body language that he is lost. Now Olympiacos... a bench player there, most likely another wasted year with tiny roleas Printezis sub, but it seems he is looking just for it nowadays - low ambitions and more cash

Yeah, seems like the case. Also his relationships matters played a role here likely.

Shawshank, it's the minimum package that I can live with. If you have an elite defender and passer at 4, I can live with that, specially if first three positions are filled with guys who can shoot. I absolutely agree that stretch 4 is sort of a must today. It is simple as that.

But than again, you have to be consistent with your position. Just as stretch 4 is a must today, so is mobile center who can step out and rotate. One moment you crave for modern shooting 4, but at the same time you say we are gonna grab medals with JV as the main guy. Mobile center is as much of important trend as shooting 4, maybe even more important. Playing JV or any other slow, bad defender center for some extended minutes is pretty much a suicide in contemporary BB and if we want to be consistent with current trends this should be very clearly addressed. Recently we were going backwards the trends and that didn't work.

[Mindozas]

Yeah, seems like the case. Also his relationships matters played a role here likely.

Nah, not this time

[Straight forward]

Im still sure Kuzminskas is best our Sf.And that he didndt play a single minute in such position all summer is ridiculous.

It happened because Kuzminskas is also a bad defender. Even at SF he's pretty bad defender. I basically agree, I would rather start Kuz instead of Maciulis, but Adomaitis wanted good defensive players to start I guess. Also I think Kuz wasn't all that convincing during practices. But generally I agree that Kuzminskas could at least have some chances at SF, Maciulis sucked in some games.

I listened to 24sec podcast on possible changes in 2020, and I pretty much agreed with Urbonas, Jankunas and Maciulis should pretty much be gonners. I even think Seibutis is on the edge to be a gonner. We know that Maciulis is all for playing and speaks about it openly, but so he did about his chances to return to Zalgiris, wishes is one thing, actual level is another. So here's what team I see for 2020 summer if all players available:

Lekavicius, Kalnietis
Grigonis, Seibutis
Brazdeikis, Ulanovas
Sabonis, Kuzminskas, Masiulis (or D-Mo..)
Sabonis, Valanciunas, Gudaitis

PG: In that podcast other dude thought Jokubaitis has some realistic chances to make 2020 and it sound crazy when you think currently 18yo is at such consideration, but actually see where it's coming from, Jokubaitis pretty much locked himself as a true Zalgiris member and looks pretty good at PG. However, I think the only way for Jokubaitis to make 2020 NT is Kalnietis absence, but I think he will come.
SG: This section looks kinda thin, but I doubt Maksvytis would have balls to cut any of Domas, JV, Gudas as they all are pretty much top players on the paper, so unless he would actually neutralise that third string PF (Masiulis/D-Mo or whoever) I think we go with 2 nominal SGs, knowing that Brazdeikis can surely play some of it and even Ulanovas probably. The thing is that I don't see Giedraitis contributing much on such level because he's too one dimentional player and is more of SF and players like Sirvydis, Dovydas Giedraitis still will be too raw (even if I'm very high on both).
SF: Hopefully we get Brazdeikis, it's worrysom that he procrastinates to contact our presidency for the matter, but if he's serious about playing for NT I pretty much believe he brakes the rotation from day one. He's tough, he's fearless and damn talented, I see him good enough to brake all the wholes to crack the rotation instantly and to add to our talents's charts instantly. Ulanovas is a lock and Maciulis should be a gonner if there's Brazdeikis, so Maksvytis shouldn't even invite him if we get Brazdeikis, IMO. Better give a chance to Butkevicius, he fills a tiny role perfectly. Also Kuz should play some sf, specially if Brazdeikis would see some action at SG.
PF: Sabonis will still inevitably play some here still, Kuz as well (I hope more adjusted role for him) and Masiulis should get a chance, IMO. He is pretty good already and will add a little but more in upcoming season. I already wrote why I don't want D-Mo, and he's not even PF
C: Three centers is too much, IMO, but since Sabonis will play some 4 it's kinda inevitable because JV and Gudaitis are simply too good. I would prefer to limit JV's PT because Sabonis and Gudaitis can pretty much do what JV does and provide much better defence and to play within the flow offensively much more naturally.

As I expressed before, I don't see us fundamentally improving in a year because some other powerhouses simply have much better teams in terms of scoring power, handles and creativity, so I'm generally sceptical about this Olympic summer and won't be disappointed with another bad result, but if we expect growth, it's all goes down to Sabonis, Grigonis, Liekavicius, Brazdeikis. These 4 players are the different makers if we speak about one year span. All of them can still add to their game a lot and only this core makes some substantial potential in a year.

[Straight forward]

So above I wrote most expected and realistic scenario (IMO). Now let's speculate a little bit about other possible scenarios. Here's the way less realistic scenario, but very nice scenario, specially for a longer term:

PG: Kalnietis, Jokubaitis
SG: Grigonis, Lekavicius, Dovydas Giedraitis

Imagine Jokubaitis actually proves he can play PG in Euroleague and one is forced to treat him seriously. Imagine Dovydas Giedraitis finds his ways with Estudiantes and looks more convincing at offence than Seibutis and provides pretty much the same defensive effort as the veteran. I would go for this backourt section on the paper with delight. I know that OG and NT whole other animal and I would say this is very utopian projection at the moment, but Jokubaitis gets Jasikevicius good words for some price, it's doesn't come from nowhere and we can see it on the court. Now Dovydas Giedraitis from what I've seen can play D and those who watched U19 performances, probably would agree with me that at the beginning of the tournament (before injury) Giedraitis looked even more convincing player than Jokubaitis. He looked gritty, poised, smart and talented. Both youngsters have terrific IQ and both terrific early-bloomers (Giedraitis destroying NKL at 16 wasn't a fluke). Why for this scenario I project Giedraitis instead of Sirvydis? That's a close call since I'm high on both, but for the same reason I prefer Jokubaitis over Velicka. Giedraitis to me has more of an ability and already spot on decision making to play within the system and to bring more of an all around skillset at 2 (since he's combo, BTW) than Sirvydis, who would still need some time to get all things together, he still goes up and down in terms of decision making, defensive effort and so on. Sirvydis has so much bigger upside than Dovydas Giedraitis, but the latter is simply closer to NT because he is already more defined as a player and plays within the role, system better.
With this backourt we could make tons of combinations as all 5 players can play within the system, play p'n'r, handle the ball, even control the tempo, so we could probably rather comfortably mix any pair of those to play together.

Sorry Rokas Giedraitis fans I don't see how can we get something really valuable from him at SG. He's not an elite spot up shooter, maybe close, but not elite, and can't bring anything much more than that at SG.

To some up, when I will really start to have much bigger expectations towards NT than last 4 years, it will be the days when NT will be filled with new backourt players in Jokubaitis, Giedraitis, Sirvydis, Brazdeikis, Velicka. Until it happens, I'm not holding my breath. We need more talent, IQ and all around skills at the backourt.

It would be great fun if that would happen even in 2020, but that goes against history and would make a precedent. One other hand, let's face it, to expect that Seibutis or Rokas Giedraitis would lift us somewhere is as utopian as to expect Jokubaitis and Dovydas Giedraitis to do so. So generally, maybe I'm a bit nihilistic towards 2020, but I would rather give a shot for youngsters if they would prove they can convincingly move in NT camp and preparation games. If we fail, at least they'll get their feet wet.

[Sabiner]

So i watched how dmo played today... Obviously you can't say much from a game like this, but he did play good offensively. you got respect how good of a passer he is, still good with his post moves, even made a 3pointer.
Defensively tho.. i dont know if he didn't even try to play defense or he really just become that slow. Anyways he is still good, but i cant imagine him playing pf, especially on a smaller court. Sabonis is basically his stronger, more athletic version

[Straight forward]

So i watched how dmo played today... Obviously you can't say much from a game like this, but he did play good offensively. you got respect how good of a passer he is, still good with his post moves, even made a 3pointer.
Defensively tho.. i dont know if he didn't even try to play defense or he really just become that slow. Anyways he is still good, but i cant imagine him playing pf, especially on a smaller court. Sabonis is basically his stronger, more athletic version

Wow, he became a fat ass center...What a shame, one of the brightest prospects of ours. Biggest fall of 10's, IMO. In 00's it was Macijauskas, in 10's Motiejunas (also Kleiza in the middle betwen 00's and 10's).