Basketball is the most popular sport in Lithuania. During public opinion polls in Lithuania, citizens regularly describe basketball as their priority interest sport. Research in 2015 indicated that nearly 41% of the population in Lithuania watched the EuroBasket 2015 final between Lithuania and Spain. The final became the most watched event of the 21st century in Lithuania. The popularity of basketball among Lithuanians led to it being nicknamed as the "second religion" in Lithuania.

In the 1930s, Lithuanian-American basketball coaches and players helped the Lithuania men's national basketball team win the last EuroBasket tournaments prior to World War II in 1937 and 1939. These events caused an increase in the popularity of basketball in Lithuania.

Following the country's occupation by the Soviet Union during World War II, Lithuanian players frequently competed with the Soviet men's national team. Lithuanian locals supported BC Žalgiris, particularly against Russian teams. After Lithuania's independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, the national team won a bronze medal in the 1992 Olympics. Lithuania has since won two more bronze medals at the Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2010 FIBA World Championship, and five EuroBasket medals, including the country's third title at FIBA EuroBasket 2003 in Sweden.

At the professional club level, BC Žalgiris won the EuroLeague in 1999 and the FIBA Saporta Cup in 1998. BC Žalgiris was also the FIBA Intercontinental Cup champion in 1986 under Soviet occupation. BC Lietuvos Rytas of Vilnius won the EuroCup twice in 2005 and 2009.

While women were the first to start playing basketball in Lithuania, the women's national team has not achieved the same success as the men's national team. However, they have won a title at EuroBasket Women 1997.

As of March 2025, the Lithuania men's national basketball team is ranked 10th in the FIBA Men's World Ranking. Previously, in 2015, it was ranked third below the United States' and Spain's men's national basketball teams. As of 2023, a total of 18 Lithuanian basketball players were recognized as the Lithuanian Sportsman of the Year.

The Lithuanian Basketball Player of the Year awards are given annually for men and women, while Jonas Valančiūnas (seven times) and Gintarė Petronytė (seven times) received the most such honors.

Basketball was first introduced in Lithuania indirectly through the European variety of netball by the Germans. Lithuanian women athletes started organizing a team in 1919. In 1920–1921, the game was played in public. The female pioneerism of basketball in Lithuania was initiated by Elena Kubiliūnaitė-Garbačiauskienė. She learned about basketball from Riga's football team members, through which she became acquainted with James Naismith's basketball rules. She then brought the rules from Riga to Lithuania's temporary capital Kaunas in 1921 and translated them into the Lithuanian language. Women since 1921 played basketball in a self-made court at the Vytautas Park in Kaunas. Because women were the first to play basketball in Lithuania, basketball's widespread popularity was not very high until the 1930s as it was considered a women's sport. In her memoirs, Garbačiauskienė recalled that "it was not easy to spread the ideals of sports in a war-weary homeland trampled under the boots of foreign armies, and no one thought about physical education, let alone women's sports". In 1922, Karolis Dineika released the book Krepšiasvydis vyrams (English: Basketball for men), and in 1926, Steponas Darius published the first basketball rules in Lithuania. Garbačiauskienė had planned to publish the rules of basketball in Lithuania herself, however, due to the lack of funds and a lack of interest in women's sports, she transferred the authorship to Darius.