MODESTAS PAULAUSKAS - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Modestas
Paulauskas
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The first
Lithuanian “king”
It was early April 1964. FIBA had just inaugurated
its first European Championship for Junior Men
in Naples, Italy. Only eight teams took part in
that tourney – Spain, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia,
Bulgaria, Italy, France, Poland and the USSR
– and in the title game, the Soviet team defeated
France 62-41. The first player to receive the trophy
was number 10, Modestas Paulauskas, who was
born in Kretinga, Lithuania on March 19, 1945. He
had just scored 14 points in the final that would
make the USSR the first junior champ in Europe.
It was a lot less than his average of 21.2 points –
against Yugoslavia, he had scored 36 and against
host Italy, 26 – but enough to be chosen, unofficially,
as the MVP of the tourney.
Ranko Zeravica, at the helm of the Yugoslav team,
said when he got back home that he had just seen
“a phenomenal player.” From that USSR generation,
aside from Paulauskas, there would be another
player to leave a strong mark in basketball, Zurab
Sakandelidze. But at the same tournament, there
were other interesting players and future superstars,
like Aldo Ossola and Carlo Recalcati for Italy,
Jiri Zednicek of Czechoslovakia, Bogdan Tanjevic of
Yugoslavia (even though he would become better
known as a coach), and Vicente Ramos and Juan
Martinez for Spain.
Many years later, Paulauskas revealed that it was
fate that drove him to this title. The Soviet team, for
some reason, missed the flight that was to take them
to the tournament. That plane crashed and left no survivors.
The young players avoided the tragedy and also
won the European Championship. Only a year later, at
the 1965 EuroBasket for men, Paulauskas was already
a big star. In the final, a 58-49 win over Yugoslavia, he
was the top scorer of his team with 16 points. He was
named MVP of the tournament with an average of 13.8
points. He was just 20 years old. He was a shooting
guard by size (1.94 meters) but he was able to play
point guard or, due to his great rebounding skills, small
forward. It was clear that the USSR had a true star for
the future.
Unforgettable Munich
In the next nine years, the USSR would win three
more EuroBasket golds (1967, 1969, 1971) and a
bronze medal (1973) with Paulauskas, as well as the
World Cup gold (1974, Puerto Rico) and bronze (1970,
Ljubljana) medals, an Olympic gold (1972, Munich) and
an Olympic bronze (1968, Mexico City). Paulauskas
lacks titles at the club level because he spent his entire
career, from 1962 to 1976, with Zalgiris Kaunas,
which was always behind CSKA Moscow and Spartak
St. Petersburg in those years. However, his wish was
to stay with the club he started with, and so he did. “I
had offers from CSKA and Spartak, but I didn’t want to
leave my club or my city,” he said many times. “It was
my choice and I don’t regret it.”
If he was short on titles with Zalgiris, he had no
room for more with the national team. He shined in
each and every tournament that he played. In the
final of the 1967 EuroBasket in Helsinki, against
Czechoslovakia, an 89-77 victory, he scored 19
points, even though the MVP was Jiri Zednicek, his
101 greats of european basketball
Modestas Paulauskas
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Vladimir Stankovic
peer from that first junior tournament in 1964. In the
final of the 1969 EuroBasket in Naples, his favorite
city, the USSR beat Yugoslavia by the score of 81-72,
with 20 points from Paulauskas and also 20 by big
man Vladimir Andreev, even though the MVP of the
tourney was Sergei Belov, another great. After a dip
at the 1970 World Cup in Ljubljana, where the USSR
“only” took the bronze (11.4 points for Paulauskas),
at the next EuroBasket, in Essen, Germany, the USSR
beat Yugoslavia again in the final game, 69-64, with
12 points by Paulauskas and 16 by Alzhan Zharmukhamedov.
The all-tournament team was formed
by Belov, Paulauskas, Edward Jurkiewicz of Poland,
Kreso Cosic of Yugoslavia and Atanas Golomeev of
Bulgaria.
At the Mexico City Olympics of 1968, the USSR
lost to Yugoslavia in the semis and took the bronze
with an average of 16 points by Paulauskas. But four
years later, at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, the gold
would go to the Soviets. The final against the United
States will always be infamous for the last three
seconds being replayed on orders by FIBA secretary
general William Jones due to a mistake by the official’s
table. The USSR turned an apparent 50-49 loss
into a 51-50 victory thanks to a basket by Alexander
Belov. Paulauskas only scored 3 points that day, on
3 of 4 free throws, but he was one of the team’s best
rebounders at 3.9 per game during the tournament.
Even though he normally puts all his triumphs and
medals at the same level, Paulauskas admits that
Munich does have a privileged spot in his memories:
“Because of the circumstances, its importance, the
rival... basically because of everything implied by
beating the United States in an Olympic final, Munich
1972 is something unforgettable,” Paulauskas
said in an interview with a Lithuanian newspaper in
2005.
Best sportsman seven times
For Lithuanian basketball connoisseurs today, the
basketball stars from that country are Arvydas Sabonis,
Sarunas Jasikevicius, Arturas Karnisovas, Sarunas
Marculionis, Valdemaras Chomicius and Rimas
Kurtinaitis. But for those with older memories, the first
great Lithuanian was Modestas Paulauskas, a complete
player. For coaches, he was like life insurance,
a player who never let you down. Of course, he could
not always play at the highest level, but he never went
down to a point that he was not recognizably himself
on the court. His averages in big competitions were
always similar, the minimum was 11.1 points in Munich
1972 and the maximum was 17.0 points at the 1969
EuroBasket. His average in FIBA competitions was
13.7, just like in most of the tournaments he played.
His popularity in Lithuania was huge. He was named
the best sportsman in Lithuania seven times between
1965 and 1972, only missing the distinction in 1968.
The first “king” of Lithuanian basketball retired at just
32 years old because he felt that “the batteries had
run dry”. He stayed in basketball as a coach, but far
from the spotlight. “Maybe destiny had it for me to be
a player and not a coach,” Paulauskas said. “Just as it
decided that we did not catch that plane in 1964.”
In 1991, FIBA chose Paulauskas among the best 50
players of all time. In that list (until 1991, of course)
there are 12 names from the former Yugoslavia and
10 from the USSR: Sergei Belov, Alexander Belov, Stepas
Butautas, Otar Korkia, Sarunas Marculionis, Anatoly
Myshkin, Modestas Paulauskas, Arvydas Sabonis,
Alexander Volkov and Viktor Zubkov.
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As the first of the three most important things
in his life, Paulauskas highlights the fact that he was
raised in a sports family, with elder brothers and one
of his sisters having been athletes as well. In second
place, he names his club, Zalgiris, and in third, his family.
He was once asked, if it was really a second religion
in Lithuania, who was the god of basketball? His answer:
“Many, but today I would say Arvydas Sabonis. I
admire his talent and I even feel a little envy.”
Paulauskas had his childhood idols in Stepas
Butautas and Stasys Stonkus, the best Lithuanian
players in the early 1960s. Talking about talent, Paulauskas
believes that nowadays in basketball “there is
more desire than talent.” He thinks that a sportsman,
to succeed, aside from talent, has to be hungry and
ready to sacrifice himself.
And if anybody wants to see a very talented player,
versatile, able to play as many as four positions, try to
track down a video of Paulauskas in his prime. One of
the greats.
Modestas Paulauskas
101 greats of european basketball
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