The Lithuanians has some serious players.
Sabonis abused David robinson in the 88 Olympics if I'm remembering that right.

Marcilionis was one of the best guards in the world for a stretch…really powerful driver.

There was also this posted today…he led Yugoslavia to a silver in Mexico City in 1968. Yugoslavia was down three at half but USA started the second half with a 22-3 run and won 65-50. Korac died in a car wreck the next year.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40102427/nikola-jokic-forgotten-basketball-legend-mvp-connection-nearly-60-years-making-sombor-serbia

Lithuania?

The comment in the Lithuanian gold in '88 reminded me of the article on Korac and fellow Serb Jokic and Slovakian Doncic. Korac played for communist Yugoslavia but helped popularize basketball when freedom wasn't a thing.

Just another article I noticed and the tie was the Mexico City silver.

Yeah the '92 Olympic basketball tournament was historical for a lot of reasons other than just the Dream Team annihilating everyone in their path. That Lithuanian team is often called "the other dream team."

There was a whole subplot of whether or not Lithuania was even going to be able to afford to send a team, and if they could, who would even be on it. Through a pretty wild series of events and connections the Grateful Dead heard about it and got involved and help launch the famous dunking skeleton shirts that helped raise money for the team. Sabonis was basically leading the charge on the phones trying to figure out who was actually qualified to represent Lithuania in the games.



Then related to what greg posted you also had Croatia competing as an independent nation for the first time and winning silver.

Really fascinating stuff.

Thanks for the link.

We went to the '84 Olympics and saw the four quarterfinals in MBB. This team was totally dominant. This article really brought that back.

We also saw the WBB medal games. USA also dominant there but China was good.

This team was the best amateur team the US fielded, but the 1960 team was filthy, too. That team featured Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas and Jerry West, and was coached by Pete Newell.