Rimas Kurtinaitis


Rimas Kurtinaitis is a Lithuanian professional basketball coach, and a retired professional basketball player, who was a member of the senior Soviet and Lithuanian national basketball teams during his playing career. He won a gold medal at 1988 Olympics in South Korea. He is currently the head coach for Khimki. At a height of 1.96 m tall, during his playing career, he played at the shooting guard position. He is the only non-NBA player to ever participate at the NBA All-Star Weekend's Three-Point Contest, doing so in 1989, where he scored 9 points.

Club playing career

Kurtinaitis' former club teams as a player, include Žalgiris Kaunas, CSKA Moscow, and Real Madrid. He was the only European player to participate in the NBA All-Star Weekend's Three-Point Contest, without ever playing in the NBA at one point, participating in the event in 1989. Kurtinaitis was also the first European player to play as an import, in Australia's National Basketball League, while playing for the Townsville Suns, in 1993.

Coaching career

In 1997, Kurtinaitis was named to the Lithuanian Ministry of Sport. In the years 2002–2006, he took the position of head coach of the Azerbaijan national basketball team. Also from 2002 to 2006, he was a player for four seasons, with Gala Baku, working as a player-coach.
He became Sakalai's head coach during the mid-2000s. In December 2007, he became the head coach of the Polish League men's basketball team, Śląsk Wrocław. In 2008, he became head coach of Lietuvos Rytas, with whom, he won the EuroCup 2008–09 season's title. After winning the championship at the Final-Eight tournament, in Turin, Italy, in a game against Khimki Moscow Region.
In 2012, Kurtinaitis won the EuroCup again, this time with Khimki. As of 2015, he is the only coach to win the EuroCup three times. On June 21, 2012, Kurtinaitis was named the best EuroCup coach of all time. On March 15, 2016, Khimki parted ways with Kurtinaitis.
On August 2, 2016, Kurtinaitis become the head coach of Pallacanestro Cantù, of the Italian LBA. However, on November 30, he was fired from the team.
Kurtinaitis agreed to return to Lietuvos rytas, on February 10, 2017, following the resignation of Tomas Pačėsas, from the club's head coaching position. This tenure with Rytas was not as successful – Rytas only finished in 3rd place in the LKL in the 2016–2017 season, a fiasco for the team. In the 2017–2018 season, the team played much better, reaching the Eurocup Top16 phase, as well as reaching the KMT and LKL finals, but lost each to Žalgiris Kaunas. In what stirred a lot of controversy, it was announced during the semifinals of the LKL that Kurtinaitis would be replaced by Dainius Adomaitis in the following season, and in June Kurtinaitis left the team.
On January 21, 2019, Kurtinaitis returned to Khimki in a surprising decision.

Awards and achievements

As player:

Pro clubs