Lietuvos Rytas. Rehabilitation

Lietuvos Rytas reached the VTB United League semifinals in 2012, ultimately finishing in 3rd place. This season, however, the team failed to even reach the playoffs, which did not go over well at the legendary Lithuanian club. VTB-League.com describes what steps Vilnius has taken to fix the situation.

The 2012/13 season was a failure for Lietuvos Rytas at every level. The team struggled to reach the Lithuanian league playoff finals, where they were unceremoniously swept by rival Zalgiris (4-0). Rytas struggled in the Euroleague, losing 8 of 10 in the first group stage to miss the Top 16 by a wide margin. Finally, the reigning bronze-medal winners finished the VTB United League with a 9-9 record, conceding the 6th and final playoff spot in Group A to Donetsk in dramatic fashion.

The Lithuanians replaced two coaches during the season. Aleksandar Dzikic, hired in July 2011, was fired last October after Lietuvos Rytas lost to Astana and Spartak St. Petersburg in the VTB United League and to CSKA in its first Euroleague game. The Serbian was replaced by assistant Darius Maskoliunas, who didn’t last long because of the team’s unsatisfactory play. German coach Dirk Bauermann took over for Maskoliunas in March.

As we already know, all of these changes didn’t deliver the needed result. This offseason, Red and Black president Gedvydas Vainauskas gave the team a 4 on a scale of 1-10 for its performance, noting as well that the club was desperately unlucky at the most important moments. Lietuvos Rytas’s main problem, however, had little to do with luck or the coaching carousel, but rather its roster. The team proved unbalanced and unable to match the Lithuanian front office’s expectations. In the end, everyone could agree on that, from the fans to club management.

As a result, Lietuvos Rytas has been busy all summer on the free agent market. Seven new players have already joined: point guard Omar Cook, guards Milenko Tepic and Martynas Geceviucius, small forward Gediminas Orelik, power forwards Steven Jelovac and Juan Palacios, as well as center Andreas Gliniadakis.

We’ll start with the guards, which also gives us an opportunity to talk about team departures. The losses of point guard Nemanja Nedovic, who signed with the Golden State Warriors (NBA), and Janis Blums, one of the team’s leading scorers, now with Astana, hit the hardest. The trio of Cook, Tepic and Gecevicius, however, have been signed to fill the gaps left by the Lithuanian and Serb.
The experienced Cook has played in almost every leading European league, as well as in the NBA and at the national level (Montenegro). Omar has seen plenty in his day and acquiring someone like him to play point guard is every coach’s dream. The club emphasizes that they anticipate the 31-year-old New York product will become one of the team’s leaders this season.

Basketball fans will also be familiar with Tepic. Milenko’s career has followed a logical trajectory for a successful Serbian player. He had success in the youth leagues and for the youth national team, earned an invitation to Partizan, won numerous domestic titles, played for the Serbian national team under Dusan Ivkovic and then transferred to a European powerhouse (Panathinaikos). While at PAO, Tepic, who can shoot from the perimeter, run the offense and dish the ball to his teammates, won the Euroleague in 2011. He then moved to Cajasol (Spain), where his career began to sputter. The move to Lietuvos Rytas is an excellent opportunity to get going again, given he’s still just 26 years old.

Gecevicius is in a similar situation. A candidate for the Lithuanian national team, he won the Euroleague the past two seasons with Olympiacos, but wasn’t a key player on the squad. His return to Vilnius, where he played from 2007-2011 is a chance to start over.

Vilnius’s newly-inked big men do not raise any concerns either. Gliniadakis was recently Euroleague champion with Olympiacos (2012), while last season in the VTB United League he played a role in Astana’s breakout performance. Jelovac put up impressive stats for Italian club Caserta last year, averaging 13.7 points and eight rebounds per game in Serie A (30 games total). Palacios, a native of Colombia who can cover both the ‘4’ and ‘5’ positions, won the French title with the sensational Nanterre last season. Orelik, meanwhile, was one of the top players on Lithuanian club Prienai.

Almost all of the new players have already arrived in Vilnius and begun preparing for the upcoming season. The club does have one issue – head coach Dirk Bauermann, in charge of the Polish national team, is preparing that squad for this September’s EuroBasket in Slovenia. His assistants, however, are working with the team in his absence.

Vilnius team reps have made known their ambitious goals. Lietuvos Rytas desperately wants to stop Zalgiris’s three-year reign in the Lithuanian league and make up for their embarrassing performance in the Euroleague (first the Red and Black must make it through qualifying which will be held in Vilnius).

Of course, the club is chomping at the bit to represent Lithuania well in the VTB United League. During the 2013/14 season, Lietuvis Rytas will play in Group A. President Vainauskas noted that the group favorites are Russian clubs Lokomotiv-Kuban and UNICS, but his team is determined to put up a fight against any opponent. Making the playoffs will be the bare minimum expected of this squad.

One other very important goal for the club is bringing the fans back to the Siemens Arena. The fickle Vilnius fans are a good gauge of how well the squad is playing. Last season, Lietuvos Rytas attendance dropped drastically. The basketball fans in Vilnius need new victories…

It’s fair to say that a strengthened Lietuvos Rytas can count on improving its recent performance and move up from being a middle-of-the-pack squad. As it looks now, the fans will be packing out Siemens Arena once again, Dirk Bauermann will not be asked to leave during the season and the front office won’t need to be as busy as it was this summer.