101 Greats of European Basketball

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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