Zalgiris Youth System and Overtime Elite partnership launched 0

More opportunities for Zalgiris Kaunas youth will now be available, as the youth system has started cooperation with Overtime Elite.

Overtime Elite is a basketball organization recently established in USA, where young basketball talents compete. The Atlanta-based league has attracted many talented youngsters from all over the world over the years, and brothers Amen and Ausar Thompson are expected to be high draft picks in the 2023 NBA Draft.

Initially, the partnership will be based on an exchange basis and internships of ten days for both sides.

Currently, Liutauras Lelevicius, Kajus Kublickas, Dovydas Butka and their coach Vytautas Pliauga, who recently became champions of NKL, are working in the States. They will get to know one of the best youth academies in America, while the green-and-whites will train with players of a different basketball style and Overtime Elite individual skills coaches. Pliauga will also conduct several training sessions for the academy’s students.

The Kaunas team also had a chance to attend an Atlanta Hawks game and experience the atmosphere of the NBA playoffs.

Zalgiris Youth Team Manager Gediminas Navickas brought the two sides together.

“During my visit to the USA, I had the opportunity to visit this organization and talk to its representatives. We quickly got the impression that this place is very interesting and we can help each other. We will all experience other cultures, different coaching styles and the principles of youth programmes,” the former player told Zalgiris.lt.

This week, Kaunas will also host guests from the USA. Former NBA player Ryan Gomes, who now coaches one of the Overtime Elite teams, and Timothy Fanning, the head coach of the academy and former assistant coach of Tel Aviv Maccabi, will visit the Zalgiris Training Centre.

Two players, Jar Jackson and Malik Bowman, have also arrived in Lithuania and will join Zalgiris’ youth team practices, which will be conducted by Zalgiris youth coaches who are still in Lithuania, as well as by guests from the USA.