Today long lasting rumours were confirmed after Dainius Adomaitis was voted as the new head coach of Lithuania national team by the Executive Committee of Lithuanian Basketball Federation.
The 42-year-old coach is currently in charge of Neptunas Klaipeda, a team he led to LKL finals last season by eliminating favourites Lietuvos Rytas in semi-finals.
Adomaitis made quick progress in his coaching career in recent seasons and established himself as one of the most promising Lithuanian coaches.
It was reported early that Adomaitis will be the new head coach of the Baltic giants since Jonas Kazlauskas decided to leave the team following expiration of his 4-year contract at the end of Rio Olympics.
However, the reports that the new coach is already selected before the actual voting and other potential candidates won’t even be discussed caused some negative reactions by the Executive Committee members.
As a result of that, more head coaches were added to consideration. The most notable being Rimas Kurtinaitis (currently coaching Cantu) who received support from some of the voters. His experience was mentioned as the main advantage against Adomaitis.
For Adomaitis it will be his biggest job. With no EuroLeague experience Adomaitis will enter new waters, though not completely unknown to him, having played on the big stage with Lithuania national team as a player. He has also coached Lithuania students team through 2013-2015.
As was the case with Kazlauskas, the new head coach was appointed for the full new Olympic cycle which will culminate in Tokyo 2020.
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