LITHUANIA | Lithuania set to appoint Kemzura as new coach

If Lithuania receive a wild card to play at the 2010 FIBA World Championship, Kestutis Kemzura will be the coach. Kemzura was on Wednesday the unanimous choice of the country’s basketball federation executive committee to become the new national team boss.

The job became vacant during the EuroBasket when Ramunas Butautas quit following the Baltic country’s exit from the Qualifying Round. The 39-year-old Kemzura put his name forward for the post after recently declining to continue with Latvia, the side he led at the EuroBasket in Poland. Rimas Kurtinaitis, a former national team star who assisted Butautas the past three years and is the current boss of Lietuvos Rytas, was supposed to be the other leading candidate for the post but in the executive meeting in Kaunas, his candidacy was considered invalid.

Committee members decided that when Butautas resigned as head coach after Lithuania’s EuroBasket 2009 Qualifying Round exit, his staff – which included main assistant Kurtinaitis – also left the national team set-up. Kemzura played the game professionally in Lithuania and later served as an assistant coach to former national team boss Antanas Sireika.

He was also the assistant coach of David Blatt at Dynamo St Petersburg and Benetton Treviso. Kemzura was appointed coach of BC Khimki in Russia in January of 2007 but parted with them early last season, which opened the door for him to coach Latvia’s national side. The Latvians had wanted to keep Kemzura in the job, despite the country having failed to progress from the Preliminary Round at the EuroBasket.

Kemzura must now thrash out personal terms with Lithuania before being confirmed as coach. Lithuania had contacted former national team coach Jonas Kazlauskas about the job but he told the federation on Monday that he would not consider the position as he is under contract as the coach of Greece's national team.

info/photos: FIBA
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