Paulius Jankunas is starting a new chapter in his career this week. After 18 years of defending Zalgiris Kaunas' honor, Jankunas is now set to become the assistant to Zalgiris GM Paulius Motiejunas.
"I met Paulius yesterday," Jankunas talked about his new phase of life on the club's #ZalgirisOnAir podcast. "My new job - assistant GM. As much as it can be strange from a basketball player's perspective, I'd never had a right-hand man in my whole career. Now, I'm going to be the right-hand man to Paulius Motiejunas."
"Everything's new to me," the Zalgiris legend told. "I found out that not only players have to pass a health check."
After joining the team in the front office, Jankunas immediately joined the search for new players for the upcoming season. Negotiations with a few of the players are already in advanced stages.
"Everything is new in the sense that I found out how all the processes work. I see how everything's being done from the inside, how the entire mechanism works," the newly-appointed assistant GM said during the podcast. "That's my future. I'm a newbie here. I want to learn as much as I can in as little time as possible."
"I can't say anything until the documents are signed. The negotiations with some players are in advanced stages, some players have already received offers, and others are still being analyzed," Jankunas explained. "Some positions are prioritized. If it works out, you build other parts of the team around those players. That's how it works."
Jankunas spent 18 years in Zalgiris Kaunas. He also remembered his best matches throughout his long-tenured career, talked about teambuilding principles and answered questions for Zalgiris fans.
Full podcast with Paulius Jankunas (in Lithuanian):
