Khimki re-signs coach Kurtinaitis

Jun 18, 2014 by Eurocupbasketball.com Print

Khimki Moscow Region reached a new agreement with head coach Kurtinaitis to keep working together until the end of the 2015-16 season, the club announced Wednesday. Kurtinaitis, age 54, joined the team in March 2011 and helped the team win the VTB League title the following month. In their first season together, he led Khimki to its only Eurocup title in 2012, downing Valencia Basket Club in the final. The 2012-13 season marked Kurtinaitis’s debut as a head coach in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and he helped Khimki reach the Top 16, being just one win away from reaching the playoffs. Last season, Kurtinaitis allowed Khimki to break the Eurocup record for most consecutive wins, 15, winning 31 straight games overall, but the team had an early exit in the competition, losing in the eighthfinals against Valencia on points differential. Khimki also won its VTB League regular season group with a 18-0 record but lost against Nizhny Novgorod in the quarterfinals. A world-renowned shooter, Kurtinaitis won World, European and Olympic Championships as a player for the Soviet Union in the 1980s and celebrated three domestic titles with Zalgiris Kaunas. During his 18-year playing career, he also won the Spanish League title with Real Madrid in 1994. All told, Kurtinaitis played for nine teams in six countries between 1981 and 1999. Following his playing days, which ended at Rytas in 1999, Kurtinaitis was appointed Lithuania's minister of sport, a post in which he worked for more than four years. He has since built his coaching career with club stops at Baku Gala of Azerbaijan, Sakalai and Lietuvos Rytas of Lithuania, Ural Great in Russia, Slask Wroclaw of Poland and VEF Riga of Latvia. He also served as national team coach of Azerbaijan and as assistant national team coach for Lithuania at two Olympics. Kurtinaitis allowed L. Rytas to win five titles in the 2008-09 season, including the Eurocup. Kurtinaitis also won four consecutive Azerbaijan League titles with Baku from 2003 to 2006, as well as another Lithuanian Cup trophy with L. Rytas in 2010. He has the chance to make Eurocup history in the 2014-15 season by becoming the first player or coach to win three titles.

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