Should the Toronto Raptors hire Sarunas Jasikevicius?

Lithuania is home to just under 2.9 million people, which makes it smaller than Connecticut and Puerto Rico. Its home continent of Europe is the land of soccer. Yet, this country obsesses over basketball. In fact, Lithuania might be more basketball crazy than America.

Lithuania has become a reliable source of NBA talent. The league has featured at least one Lithuanian player every season since 1989, when Sarunas Marciulionis signed with Golden State. Since then, Lithuania has given us Arvydas Sabonis, a Hall of Famer; Zydrunas Ilgauskas, one of LeBron James’ favorite teammates; and current players Jonas Valanciunas of Toronto and Domantas Sabonis of Indiana.

Is it time for a Lithuanian head coach? On June 5, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Raptors GM Masai Ujiri had interviewed Lithuanian legend and former NBA player Sarunas Jasikevicius for the team’s vacancy.

Jasikevicius spent one year at high school in Pennsylvania and four years at Maryland but went undrafted in 1998 and returned to Lithuania, where he began his professional career. In the 2000 Olympics, Jasikevicius led Lithuania to the semifinals, where it faced the United States. Going against a backcourt that featured Vince Carter, Ray Allen, Jason Kidd and Gary Payton, Jasikevicius scared the heck out of USA Basketball, dropping a tournament-high 27 points in an 85-83 loss.

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Jasikevicius signed with FC Barcelona of Spain and won a Euroleague title three years later. The following season, he jumped to Maccabi Tel Aviv, which had a guy named David Blatt as an assistant coach. Maccabi won the Euroleague title in 2004, giving Jasikevicius — now among the best players on the continent — back-to-back titles as a player.

In the 2004 Olympics, Jasikevicius and Lithuania got their revenge on Team USA. He lit up the Americans for 28 points, trash-talking and staring down a squad that included LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony.

“I was a free agent in Europe, and it never came — any offers. They talked about they were interested, but there weren’t even any minimum offers,” Jasikevicius said in an ESPN interview. “So I think I’m just not a player for the NBA, because these guys know what they’re doing.

“If 30 teams think a player cannot play, I cannot play.”

Jasikevicius returned to Maccabi for the 2004-05 season and repeated as Euroleague champion, etching a place in European basketball history as a dynasty. His lifelong dream was finally answered that summer, when Indiana signed him as a free agent. At least one NBA team thought he could play.

However, Jasikevicius’ NBA career was short lived. He lasted a season-and-a-half with the Pacers as a third guard before being traded to Golden State. The following season, he was back in Europe with Greek club Panathinaikos.

In three seasons, Jasikevicius won three Greek titles, three Greek Cups and a fourth Euroleague title, making him the only player to lift the trophy with three different teams.

Jasikevicius spent four more seasons in Europe, wrapping up his playing career in 2014 with the club he idolized as a boy, Lithuanian giants Zalgiris Kaunas. He joined the coaching staff as an assistant before becoming head coach in the 2015-16 season when Gintaras Krapikas was fired.

The club’s improvement under Jasikevicius was methodical. They continued to dominate in their domestic league — the LKL — where they had the largest budget. But they struggled to compete in Euroleague, where their budget was among the lowest. This season, however, Zalgiris finally broke through, shocking everyone by making the playoffs as the sixth seed with an 18-12 mark — and the second-lowest budget.

The dream season continued with a quarterfinal series upset of Greek giants Olympiacos, vaulting Zalgiris into an improbable berth in the Euroleague Final Four. Jasikevicius — one of the toughest and fiercest competitors ever — was overcome with emotion on the bench.

Although Zalgiris lost in the semifinals to then reigning champions Fenerbahce, they defeated CSKA Moscow in the third-place game. Their magical season was grounded in the work ethic of their coach, as reported last season by Lithuanian basketball journalist Donatas Urbonas of 15min:

"“Jasikevicius’ work in the Zalgiris arena begins early, often earlier than some of the arena employee’s. The first thing he does is watch film of upcoming opponents. After that, he works out at the team gym, and then goes to team training. If there isn’t a morning workout for the team that day, Jasikevicius goes back to watching film, and then after that he eats lunch. After that, he naps, something Jasikevicius cites as a necessity. While he sleeps, the rest of the coaching staff meets before the evening training and then an hour before Jasikevicius returns and they set the plan for the evening workout with fine detail. They discuss the nuances of the practice session and go over every drill they will go through. For film sessions, the process starts with team scout Evaldo Berzininkai. He analyzes opponents and compromises video for the coaching staff. Then every member of the staff watches film on their own, but no one watches it like Jasikevicius. He watches a lot of film, highlights weak opponents, and then comes up with a game plan. Jasikevicius excel’s at finding cracks in opponent’s games, but then proceeding with caution, and making sure the cracks are regular occurrences that he can count on to exploit.”"

*This is a translation from Urbonas’ piece.

“It was a pleasure working with him, he demands and brings the best out of all of his players,” one of Jasikevicius’ former players told The Step Back. “His knowledge of the game is wise and he has all the tools you need to be a good coach. He’s very passionate and I think with some small tactical adjustments I think he would be a great coach.”

Jasikevicius’ work ethic, commitment and love for the game are not the only things he was commended for this season. His offensive sets popped up all over the internet and became X-and-O porn for hoopheads all over the world.

https://twitter.com/LukaBassin/status/986921680026128386

Under former coach Dwane Casey, Toronto’s offense at times bogged down with the isolations of All-Star guards Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan. Jasikevicius wouldn’t dare let that happen.

Zalgiris was fifth in offensive rating at 101.5 and led Euroleague with a 53.5 true shooting percentage. They were eighth in defensive rating with 98.1, an overachievement when you consider their two best offensive players — Kevin Pangos and Paulias Jankunas — were liabilities on defense who forced Jasikevicus to develop schemes to hide them.

Jasikevicius doesn’t just thrive as a tactician; he understands the social competence element of coaching as well. Look at this clip from a press conference last season, when a reporter asked Jasikevicius about center Augusto Lima missing their semifinal series for the birth of his child. (Turn captions on)

Hiring Jasikevicius would be a risky move by Ujiri. Jasikevicius has spent just three seasons as a head coach — none in the NBA— and would be under ridiculous pressure in taking over a team coming off a franchise-record 59 wins.

Jasikevicius would be following the path of Blatt, taking his first NBA job after an incredible Euroleague season, rather than the path of Ettore Messina, who won Euroleague titles before spending multiple seasons on San Antonio’s bench as an assistant to Greg Popovich. Even Igor Kokoskov, whom the Phoenix Suns recently made the first foreign-born head coach in league history, spent nearly two decades on NBA benches.

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If Jasikevicius is hired and fails, the door could close for successful European coaches trying to make the jump to NBA head coach, banishing them to the Messina route. When Blatt came over, every coach in Europe was rooting for him to succeed and prove that many of them deserved a shot at coaching in the NBA. Jasikevicius would face the same pressure. But if there’s a coach who isn’t frightened by that pressure and is brave and tough enough to embrace the role of breaking the mold for European coaches, it’s Jasikevicius.