Don't mess with da mayor
With regard to the current insanity engulfing Lithuanian League Championship participant Zalgiris Kaunas – i.e. its fourth coach this season being suspiciously canned by outlandish owner Vladimir Romanov in the midst of the best-of-five playoff – the city mayor Andrius Kupčinskas yesterday released a statement, which reads in part:
“During the LKL finals, a coach who won the [LKL regular season] has been fired. A few months ago, previous coach Ramunas Butautas, who coached Zalgiris to the Euroleague Top 16 and third place in the VTB was also fired. All this creates doubt about stability of the team, which is sponsored by the municipality [of Kaunas]. We wish to highlight that stability is one of the main factors when deciding about future sponsorship of the team.”
Right. Just in case the stakes weren’t high enough.
Game four of the best-of-seven LKL championship tips off tonight at 7.10pm local time (6.10 CET); Lietuvos Rytas is up, two games to one. Zalgiris’ head coach for the game has yet to be named.
