NBA big men Jonas Valanciunas and Domantas Sabonis headline Lithuania’s 12-man Olympic basketball roster announced Saturday.
Lithuania, one of the best Olympic men’s basketball nations of the last 25 years, lost five straight Olympic semifinals from 1992 through 2008. It was beaten by Russia in the 2012 Olympic quarterfinals.
Lithuania qualified for Rio by beating 2014 World silver medalist Serbia in the EuroBasket semifinals Sept. 18 before it lost to Spain in the final.
Valanciunas, then 20, was the youngest player on the 2012 Lithuanian Olympic team that included NBA veterans Sarunas Jasikevicius, Linas Kleiza and Darius Songalia, all of whom are not on the Rio Olympic team.