Lithuania is a country with a small population, but it is rich in giant players. It is easy to give the impression that "Lithuanians are born tall and have the talent to play basketball". A sample survey in 2005 showed that the average height of Lithuanian men aged 19 to 24 was 177.2 cm. According to statistical rules, the height of Lithuanians is lower than that of men in some European and American countries.
But Lithuanians may be the most basketball-loving people in the world, and even the Americans who invented the game cannot compare. Nowhere is this more evident than in the 2014 Basketball World Cup, where 2.22 million people in Lithuania watched the national team's game live, accounting for about 76% of the country's population. One of the most popular games was, of course, the semifinal against the United States. At least 740,000 Lithuanians watched the live broadcast, and the French basketball team's all-time high viewing record was only 700,000.
Lithuanians love basketball, and even caused a peculiar phenomenon to the country's ratings survey: as long as there is an international basketball competition year, the first, second, and third runner-up ratings of that year are the Lithuanian team's game program. For example, 7 of the 10 highest-rated programs in 2015 were ball games. The high enthusiasm has brought a considerable number of participants. According to the statistics of the European Basketball Federation, the total number of registered and unregistered basketball players in Lithuania is 147,733, which is half of Russia and 1/5 of Germany. Although the absolute numbers are modest, the average quality of Lithuanian basketball players is higher than that of the surrounding sports powerhouses. The reason is simple: Lithuania devotes the vast majority of its sports resources to basketball. Although the population is less than 3 million, Lithuania has 17 basketball arenas with a capacity of 1,000 people. In Lithuania, a small country with low per capita income, the only athletes who can earn millions of dollars a year are basketball players, even though Lithuania's top players often don't stay in the country.
So why do Lithuanians love basketball?
The seeds of North American immigration
Lithuania played against Latvia, but was beaten 123-10. The Lithuanians who lost the game didn't care, but this game stimulated three Americans who changed the history of Lithuania. A group of Lithuanian-American basketball players were also present at the World Lithuanian Congress held in Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania. Seeing that the sports level of the motherland is so backward, three of them immediately decided to stay.
They became the seeds of Lithuanian basketball, and two years later, more Lithuanian-American players joined Lithuanian basketball. The most important "foreign aid" was Frank Lubin, the main center who led the U.S. team to the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Lubin's parents were immigrants from Lithuania. After becoming Olympic stars, the family returned home. During the period, his wife and sister broke their legs and had to stay to recover. The Lithuanians took the opportunity to invite Lubin to be the first head coach of the national basketball team.
The Lithuania team, which is dominated by American players and implements American training, quickly became a strong team in European basketball. In the second European Basketball Championship in 1937, they were invited to participate for the first time, and they won all five games and won the championship with a 24-23 victory over the Italian team in the final.
This championship has inspired the enthusiasm of Lithuanians to participate in and engage in basketball. It seems that every yard has been equipped with baskets overnight, and the barn in the countryside has been transformed into a basketball arena without seats. Lithuania has truly become a basketball country. In 1939, in order to host the third European Championships, Kaunas built the first professional basketball stadium in Europe, where the Lithuanian team successfully defended its title and established the status of Kaunas as a basketball city.
Fertile soil for national consciousness
Many Eastern European countries once dominated some sports, but political turmoil and a lack of commercial markets quickly eroded their positions. Lithuania's national fortunes are even more troubled. In the Soviet-German secret agreement before the "World War II", it was assigned to the Soviet Union and lost its independent status since then. The basketball career was decimated by massacres and exiles during the resistance to Soviet annexation: American players were forced to leave, and native players either went into exile or joined the resistance.
But it is precisely because of this situation that basketball's spiritual status in Lithuanians has been greatly improved. Dissatisfied with his situation in the Soviet Union, anything that can be used as a national symbol is regarded as a precious tradition of the Lithuanians. Lithuanian mass sports also attach importance to basketball because of national consciousness. Even if they are sent to the "Gulag", Lithuanians should take basketball with them.
In September 1991, Lithuania became the first republic to break away from the Soviet Union, and their second belief—basketball can finally return to the international arena. Oncoming is the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The preparation time left for Lithuania is not sufficient, and the new country has no budget allocated to the team. This time, it was Lithuanian basketball players from the other side of the ocean who supported the motherland. With the donations initiated by Matthew Leonis and others in the United States, the Lithuanian team collected the participation fees.
Although this year's Lithuania team was blocked by the "Dream Team" led by Jordan from the final threshold, it unexpectedly competed for the bronze medal with the CIS team composed of Russia and some of the original allied countries. This was the Lithuanian's dream opponent, and in the end, they won 82:78.
Regarding this honor, the team's star Sabonis said with emotion: "In Seoul, I won the gold medal (for the Soviet Union), but this bronze medal in Barcelona is the soul of our Lithuanians."