Darius Maskoliūnas, who wore the captain’s armband at Kaunas “Žalgiris” and the Lithuanian national team and won several awards for the country, did not achieve successful results on the sidelines.
In 1998 and 1999, D. Maskoliūnas was the first person in “Žalgiris” to lift the European Cup and EuroLeague titles, and more than two decades later, in 2021, he became the first coach in independent Lithuania’s history who did not lead the national team to the Olympic Games.
The specialist from Jonava resigned from his position after losing the Olympic qualifying final against the Slovenian national team led by Luka Dončić, but he was surprised by the identical decision of his friend and colleague Rimas Kurtinaitis halfway through the qualification for the 2027 World Championship.
“It sounded strange to me, just as it did to you,” said 55-year-old Darius Maskoliūnas on the 15min show PIKENROLAS. “When the head coach resigns, the association president should make it public. After all, this is the head coach of the main Lithuanian national team. He is a basketball figure standing high in the entire hierarchy. To keep it quiet for a couple of weeks and then leave with the theory that he had a resignation letter and was therefore looking for a new coach? In this whole situation, I feel most sorry for Rimas, my colleague, former clubmate, and a truly respected person. For two weeks, unexplained things were happening – searches, proposals, turned into some consultations, and then the president said: ‘No, we do not accept the resignation, so you, Rimas, continue working.’ It sounds very unpleasant.”
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D. Maskoliūnas was surprised by the information that after the resignation on July 8, R. Kurtinaitis continued to communicate with the players and planned the upcoming FIBA “window”.
“I can speak for myself. I messed up, did not lead the team to the Olympic Games, came to the press conference, and resigned. Rimas resigned, brought a note, but continued talking to the players? And that resignation would have been illogical. You have to finish the job, somehow you have to do it. We all want a positive ending. You are in the middle of the process, so dumping everything would have been strange. What should the new coach do who would come to Rimas’s place? If you handed in a letter and resigned, then you definitely don’t call the players and say everything is fine. That is strange,” said D. Maskoliūnas, who led the national team from 2019 to 2021, on the 15min show PIKENROLAS.
D. Maskoliūnas responded to the widespread criticism of the association “Lithuanian Basketball” president Mindaugas Balčiūnas, who does not take responsibility, and named the best candidate to replace him.
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