SAN JUAN (Puerto Rico) - When Lithuania were making their plans for the summer, the conundrum of getting the most out of the Domantas Sabonis and Jonas Valanciunas partnership was what was on everyone's mind.
In previous tournaments, it just hadn't clicked.
The Baltic side were good and showed plenty of promise, but ultimately couldn't find their way past spacing issues on offense and defensive limitations on the other end to take them into the medals.
After an unsuccessful campaign at the FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2019, falling short to the Luka Doncic-led Slovenia at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament at home in Kaunas in 2021 and a disappointing finish to FIBA EuroBasket 2022, the tournament in San Juan was supposed to be perhaps the last attempt with the same – or at least a similar – formula.
While Valanciunas had been the main building block in the national team since his debut in 2011, the emergence of Sabonis as a bonafide NBA superstar in recent years seemed to offer an alternative path – giving the keys to Domas.
Now our system and our basketball are more about Domas and before we used to play maybe with two big guys on the court.
This discourse was, to a large degree, theoretical in nature but when when Valanciunas unexpectedly announced he would miss the Olympic Qualifying Tournament due his impending NBA free-agency, it was time to put theory into practice.
The players and coaching staff alike needed to make the necessary adjustments and more spaced-out lineups around the Sacramento Kings' star.
"Now our system and our basketball are more about Domas and before we used to play maybe with two big guys on the court," head coach Kazys Maksvytis said. "Now we are more flexible, and I hope that we use our new style in a good way."
Point guard Rokas Jokubaitis spoke of the stylistic difference between both leaders.
"They are a little bit different type of players, different type of personalities," he said. "It's sad that Jonas couldn't make it here, but we have Domas who is dominant, big guy in the NBA and he gives us a lot of great stuff on the court and he's giving us good stuff off the court, so that's the most important. Now we have Domas and we will manage how to find him and make him better. I think he thinks the same about the team."
Lithuania handled Mexico with relative ease during Tuesday's debut, but then had to dig deep to avoid an upset at the hands of Côte d'Ivoire on Wednesday.
The Europeans looked fazed in the second half as The Elephants erased an 11-point deficit and got up by as much as 9 in the fourth quarter.
And just when it seemed like the game was slipping away, Lithuania regained their composure by putting the ball in the hands of their best player. Sabonis was nails, scoring 9 of his 22 in the final period, including the bucket that tied the game at 90 with 1:31 left in the game.
"It's something I've been doing now for many summers with the national team and we're one man down but everyone else showed up," Sabonis. "We understand Jonas. If we win this, he'll definitely join us for the Olympics."
After agreeing to a three-year contract with the Washington Wizards, Valanciunas made a promise to rejoin the squad if they were to punch their ticket to the Olympic Games.
But in the meantime, Lithuania is Sabonis' team and they'll go as far as he takes them. The hope is that this road will lead to Paris.
FIBA