Sports commentator and “Žalgiris TV” show host Rytis Kazlauskas interviewed the strategist about the team’s roster work, depth of the lineup, its challenges, and the vision for the upcoming season.
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The entire podcast, in which T. Masiulis also answered viewers’ questions, is now available on the “Žalgiris Insider” platform.
“Speaking about those challenges, it all comes down to this. We have 15 practically equal players, three players in each position, and 12 play on the court, usually you use 10 in games, so the challenge for the coaches will be to unite everyone into one fist and play together. There are also challenges for the players – some came from teams where they had a lot of ball time, and we want everyone to play because it is much harder for other teams to guard us when we have strong players in every position. We want to be versatile and believe we will be, but we are still far from a perfect picture. Of course, the players are experienced, they see the lineup and gradually understand what we want, so we try to go in that direction so that everyone is happy and strives for one goal, so that it is better for the team,” said T. Masiulis.
The strategist also spoke about Jonas Valančiūnas joining the team and his adaptation to Europe after 14 seasons in the NBA.
“Of course, Jonas is a big figure and both we have to adapt to him and he has to adapt to us, returning to this basketball which is more about speed and three-pointers. In my career, there have been strong players, but Jonas is definitely one of the stronger ones. Ąžuolas is not weak either, Rolandas Šmitas, I remember, was really solid, but in the fifth position Jonas is strong, tall, powerful – we just need to use him well. Jonas has seen and played European basketball, so it is much easier for him to return, but adaptation is necessary – the paint area is more crowded, opponents will double-team him, so he has to be prepared for that,” the coach emphasized.
T. Masiulis also discussed the team’s “honeymoon” at the start of the season, the integration of the new coaching staff member, and Carsen Edwards’ assimilation.
“We watch him and have been playing against him for years, so we definitely know what he can do. I would like to talk more from the human side because the image was that he is a difficult player to control, but so far there have been no such problems at all. He is a very polite, attentive person, but we will see how we feel in extreme situations, although the same can be said about every player. So far, Carsen is fitting in well and trying to understand what we want, and we want even more defense because in all teams he was the offensive leader, so he had to defend less. As coaches, we want to arrange everything so that he feels good and can reveal his best qualities,” added the coach.
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