Who is Sarunas Jasikevicius, and why are the Raptors interviewing him for head coach?
Toronto has to replace Dwane Casey. This should be interesting to watch.
As the Toronto Raptors navigate the tricky waters in a post-Dwane Casey world, an outside-the-box name has emerged as his potential replacement. Rising EuroLeague coach Sarunas Jasikevicius has interviewed for the open position, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
He joins Toronto assistant coach Nick Nurse and Spurs assistants Ettoire Messina and Ime Udoka as candidates who have been interviewed for the head coaching position.
But unlike the three assistant coaches just named, Jasikevicius has no NBA coaching experience and doesn’t have all that much coaching experience, period.
That doesn’t mean he’s ill-fit for the job. He’s just an out-of-the-box option for a team that might need a way out-of-the-box solution.
Who exactly is Sarunas Jasikevicius?
If his name sounds familiar, that’s because he’s an international star who briefly played in the NBA. Jasikevicius spent four years as a player at Maryland, and after going undrafted in the 1998 NBA Draft, he starred internationally before returning stateside for stints with the Indiana Pacers (2005-07) and the Golden State Warriors (2007).
Jasikevicius hopped around the EuroLeague for another seven years, ending his playing career in 2014 with BC Zalgiris in Lithuania. He retired with four Euroleague crowns, nine league titles, and 10 regional cups across different countries. The following year, he joined Zalgris as an assistant coach.
Since 2016, Jasikevicius has been head coach
And BC Zalgiris has flourished. Jasikevicius — whom local media affectionately refer to as “Saras” — coached his team to back-to-back Lithuanian League championships (2016 and 2017), as well as back-to-back national domestic basketball cup competition victories in 2017 and 2018.
He has been praised as a coach who has been able to make the most of a roster that was constructed with little money to spend on player salaries.
That’s because his offensive system moves the ball
If the Raptors had been ripped for anything in the past, it’s that the ball tended to stick to their stars’ hands. Casey revamped the offense last summer, and Toronto moved the ball and shot more threes. It resulted in a franchise-record 59 regular-season wins. It also resulted in a sweep at the hands of LeBron James.
But if you’re a Raptors fan and you take a look at the offense Jasikevicius runs in Lithuania, your mind might start spinning. BC Zalgiris made a living off moving the ball around the perimeter until the best possible shot became available.
Last season, BC Zalgris shot 42 percent as a team from three-point range, a welcome percentage in an NBA that has dove headfirst into triple frenzy. They attempted 594 treys through 36 games — a second-worst average of 16.5 per game — but the clip at which they made them was a Euroleague best. For what it’s worth, no NBA team shot better than 39 percent from three this season, and most shot between 35.1 and 36.9 percent from downtown. The NBA three-point line, though, is 1.6 feet further from the rim than the international three-point line.
But a rookie NBA head coach? For this roster?
Yes, it is a bit odd. The window for DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry’s success is slamming shut. The Celtics are coming. The 76ers are coming. The Pacers are coming. So long as LeBron James stays out East, he’s the gatekeeper. Teams like the Bucks, Wizards, and Heat will always have their hat in the playoff race.
But outside-the-box hires often work best, too. In 2014, the Warriors parted ways with Mark Jackson and hired a rookie head coach in Steve Kerr. Golden State has won two championships in the three years since, and is on the verge of winning a third. The Cavaliers hired David Blatt, a rookie NBA head coach, who helped Cleveland to a Finals appearance, and they probably would have won had both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love not been injured. They lost and fired him at midseason the next year, then promoted Tyronn Lue — you guessed it: a rookie head coach — who coached the Cavs to their first championship in franchise history.
The best example of a surprising hire might be the Boston Celtics, who pried Brad Stevens away from Butler to everyone’s shock in 2013. Stevens is now regarded as one of the two best head coaches in the game and led an injury riddled Celtics team one game away from the NBA Finals.
Still, even those names had more of a pedigree than Jasikevicius. Kerr was a former general manager and well-respected TNT commentator who always planned to giving coaching a go. Blatt had been a star international coach for more than 20 years. Lue had earned his stripes on Doc Rivers’ staff in Boston and Los Angeles. Stevens took Butler — Butler — to back-to-back NCAA title games.
Jasikevicius has accomplished a lot in two years of coaching, but it’s only been two years. Hiring him would be a bold move. Maybe that’s what the Raptors need.
Rookie head coaches are scattered all over the league. Eleven of the NBA’s head coaches are in their first contract, and none of the three candidates Ujiri has interviewed have served as head coaches in this league.
The Raptors are in an interesting scenario, having played so well just to be swept by James for the second year in a row. Jasikevicius would be an interesting hire, with a brief stint in the NBA followed by gobs of success as both a player and coach in Europe.
Toronto chose its path when it parted ways with Casey. Whatever the Raptors do next, they better get it right.