Medipolis Jena's Linartas family from Lithuania helping bright future
Marius Linartas and his twin 2003-born sons Adomas and Bartautas Linartas are part of a bright future for the German second division club Medipolis Jena - a club already known for youth development.
This is a detailed look at the youth development in the club history - and present - of Medipolis SC Jena - formerly known as Science City Jena. Sit back and grab a coffee and take a journey with us.
Medipolis SC Jena might not be among the teams most people think about when they look for clubs that do excellent youth development work. But the German city clearly has left its mark on the country. And with the help of a trio of Lithuanians, Jena’s basketball leaders hope more prominence is to come.
Located about halfway between Berlin and Frankfurt and about 75 kilometes southwest of Leipzig, Jena is the second-largest city in the former East German state of Thuringia - a city of about 110,000 people that lies in the hills near the Saale River. Jena is a cultural and educational/research hotbed with the University of Jena having been established in 1558 and three branches of the Max Planck Institute also being located in the city.
Basketball start in Jena
Basketball does not have nearly the same tradition in the city, especially in the minds of fans from outside the country. Science City Jena was founded in 1993 as TuS Jena, the moniker under which the club reached the German second division in 2001.
A gradual climb followed and then a 24-year-old head coach Björn Harmsen guided the club to the 2006-07 title in the 2. Bundesliga South to earn promotion to the German BBL Bundesliga.
The name Science City Jena was born that off-season but the club struggled in the top flight, going 5-29 and finishing last in 2007-08 and going back down to the second division - which was then reformed as the ProA.
After eight seasons in the second flight, Jena were back in the Bundesliga in 2016 - again with Harmsen as coach after he took over in 2013 having been sacked in the club’s first go-around in the BBL.
Golden Oldies - trio older than head coach
Jena that 2016-17 season had the odd distinction of having three BBL veterans - arguably league legends - all in their mid-to-upper 30s in Julius Jenkins (35 years), Immanuel McElroy (36) and Derrick Allen (36) who were all older than their head coach - Harmsen being 34 when that season started. Jena lasted three seasons in the BBL before finishing last in 2018-19 and heading back to the ProA.
The club reorganized itself upon relegation and the aim was to return to the BBL. After the Covid-19 outbreak, the club made it clear that they not only want to get back to Germany’s top flight but they also want to become one of the country’s top youth programs - and that with now a different name: Medipolis Jena and a new head coach.
Jena this off-season brought on Domenik Reinboth, a 38-year-old head coach who had spent the past decade coaching with the famed Ehingen Urpring program - the past five seasons as the head coach of the club’s senior team.
“Now it’s time for me to not just develop players but also myself and take the next step,” Reinboth told the German language BIG magazine. “And there is just such enormous potential in Jena.”
“We do not just want to do good youth work to do good youth work. Our clear goal is to develop players for the ProA and later on the BBL. Players who make the jump from our youth teams should also stay with us,” Jena academy director Torsten Rothämel was quoted in the article.
According to the BIG article, Jena instituted a club-internal rule to include at least four U22 players on their ProA roster for all games on top of four other German players. The club wants to have their young players more often take part in practices with the senior team. In addition, the club aims to get their second team, Culture City Weimar, promoted from the Regionalliga to the third division ProB.
“For the future, we hope we will see the players that we develop become identification figures in our own team,” Rothämel continued.
That has not really been the case in the past. Few people will realize that Jena was an early stop for some of the top players the club developed.
Voigtmann and Wank
Many will remember Johannes Voigtmann cutting his teeth at Fraport Skyliners as a youngster, playing four seasons in Frankfurt before then moving onto Baskonia in Spain and now with Russian giants CSKA Moscow. But long before he became even a German national team player, Voigtmann came through the Jena system. A native of Eisenach - about 50 kilometers west of Jena also in the state of Thuringia - Voigtmann played with Jena from 2010 to 2012, including the full 2011-12 season in the ProA.
Voigtmann’s German senior national team colleague Lukas Wank also joined Jena early on, moving from Altenburg about 40 kilometers southwest to Jena in 2012 and playing in the U16 JBBL league that first year. Wank would help Jena win the 2015-16 ProA crown and then move to s.Oliver Würzburg before heading to Niners Chemnitz and Basketball Löwen Braunschweig and this off-season to Frankfurt.
Jena produced two other names some people in German basketball circles will recognize. Paul Albrecht was part of the German team that played at the FIBA U16 European Championship 2009 and then competed at the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup 2010 in Hamburg, Germany. He came up in the Jena system and played in the ProA for seven seasons.
Another big name that Jena produced was Daniel Mayr. Why does that name kind of ring a bell but not really? Mayr was born in Bonn and played in the Telekom Baskets Bonn youth ranks before joining Jena in 2009 as a 14-year-old. He developed into one of the top big men talents in the country, with the 1995-born center even earning a spot at the 2014 adidas Eurocamp in Treviso - after which he signed with Bayern Munich. Injuries absolutely ravaged his career, not playing for years and years before finally getting back on the court in the ProB in 2019-20 with Schwelm, where he still plays.
Where are we now
So more than 900 words ago, it was mentioned at the beginning of this article that a trio of Lithuanians would be playing a key role in Jena’s future. That refers to Marius Linartas and his twin 2003-born sons Adomas and Bartautas Linartas.
Marius Linartas has been with the Jena club since 2018 and he actually took over as head coach in 2019 when Harmsen decided to step down after the team struggled. The Klaipeda native is currently serving as an individual trainer with Jena’s pro team and the head coach of the U19 NBBL team.
Marius Linartas has developed a strong name in the game of basketball.
He served 11 years as a coach as the Sarunas Marciulionis Basketball Academy from 1997 to 2008. He coached the Rytas Vilnius youth from 2008 to 2010 and then was the assistant coach for Rytas’ pro team in 2010-11.
Linartas left Lithuania and made a number of stops, two seasons with Polish team Energa Czari - the first as assistant coach and the second as head coach; then two seasons as assistant at Krasny Oktyabr of Russia; followed by one season as head coach of Shandong in China. Linartas returned to his home city in 2016 and was assistant there from 2016 to 2018 before making his way to Germany and Jena.
During all that time, he also was head coach of Lithuania’s U18 national team from 2007 to 2013, winning the FIBA U18 European Championship 2010. That is extremely note-worthy as it was the 1992-born Lithuanian generation that famously pulled off the European triple and the global quadruple: taking gold at the FIBA U16 European Championship 2008, FIBA U18 European Championship 2010, FIBA U20 European Championship 2012 as well as the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup 2011. The two leaders of that 2010 team for Lintaras were Jonas Valanciunas and Edgaras Ulanovas. And with Valanciunas he also reached the 2009 Adidas Next Generation Tournament final, losing 123-110 to FMP Belgrade in Berlin at the EuroLeague Final Four.
Others Linartas coached during his time were 2008 Olympian Marius Prekevičius, Augustas Pečiukevičius and Saulius Kulvietis.
Domination in NBBL
Getting to Marius’ children. Neither Adomas nor Bartautas - known as Adam and Bart - have gotten into a ProA game. But they are dominating things in the NBBL, especially Bartautas.
In Jena’s season opener, he poured in 18 points on 5-of-16 shots (1-of-8 threes) and 7-of-8 free throws, 6 rebounds, 1 assist and 2 steals in a 72-58 victory over Roth Energie BBA Giessen 46ers. Adomas picked up 12 points, 4 rebounds and 1 steal.
Neither of the brothers were available for Jena’s 87-79 Round 2 loss to Brose Bamberg / Tröster Breitengüßbach. Raphael Falkenthal - who played with Germany’s U16 national team this past summer - led the way with 24 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals.
The brothers were back in the lineup for Round 3 with Bartautas collecting 31 points on 12-of-20 shooting, including 7-of-12 three-pointers, and 0-of-1 free throw, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 block and 2 turnovers in 26:25 minutes in a 71-61 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt / Fraport Skyliners. Adomas added 12 points, 1 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals.
Round 4 saw Jena battle with KICKZ IBAM, coming up with a major comeback but losing in the end 86-85 at home to the Munich powerhouse. Bartautas led the way with 29 points on 11-of-20 shots (6-of-11 threes) and 1-of-2 free throws to go with 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals and 0 turnovers in more than 33 minutes. Adomas added 11 points - on just 3-of-16 shooting - and 6 rebounds.
The leader for IBAM was Dan Mukunas with 23 points and 8 rebounds while one of his teammates got the bragging rights for Lithuania. Fellow 2003-born Emilis Butkus picked up 14 points, 3 rebounds and 3 steals as he competes in his second season in Germany.
While Butkus has already played for Lithuania - at the FIBA U16 European Championship 2018 and 2019 as well as the FIBA U20 European Challengers 2021 - neither of the Lintaras twins have played for Lithuania.
Rothämel was very pleased when the Linartas family decided in July 2021 to return to Jena.
“They have been a major part of our program for more than three years, and we know exactly what we have in them,” he said. “Due to his work in youth development as well as the experience Marius has gathered at other renown programs, he is predestined to lead our young talents to the professional team.”
For those who might be wondering how difficult it is to distinguish the identical twins, previous youth coach Farsin Hamzei, who is with the Culture City Weimar side said: “You can really tell the difference because of their playing style. Adam is more the organizer, who likes to play chess on the court and give the team structure. Bart is an extremely good shooter, whose decision making has greatly improved recently. While Adomas is developing into a classic point guard, Bartautas will eventually move to the shooting guard spot.”
JBBL U16 Final 2019
The twins have already left their mark with the club as they sensationally guided Jena to the Final of the JBBL in 2019 - beating reigning champions Alba Berlin in the Semi-Finals 82-70 with Bartautas scoring 22 points. Jena ended up losing in the Final 104-86 to FC Bayern Munich with Adomas collecting 27 points and 12 rebounds while Bartautas had 21 points.
What other talents
In terms of what other talents the club has … one of the bigger talents - also in size - is Rafael Alberton Rodrigues, a 2.14 meter Brazil center, who arrived from IBAM and is averaging 1.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 0.8 blocks in 7:31 minutes over five ProA games.
Vuk Radojicic is a 2001-born Serbian point guard, the 2000-born shooting guard Moritz Plescher came from the Bamberg system and 2001-born wing Lorenz Bank and 2003-born 2.10 meter center Johann Walter are both from Jena’s own youth programs and are with the ProA team.
The JBBL U16 is led by the 2006-born duo Luca May and Cornelius Meinel and the 2007-born pair Johann Grau and Richard Schmitt.
The Linartas family - father Marius and his identical twin sons Adomas and Bartautas - is a big part of the near future for Medipolis Jena. But all in all, they are also part of a program that seems ready to take off.
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