Rimantas KaukÄ—nas
Rimantas Kaukėnas ( born April 11, 1977 in Vilnius, Lithuanian SSR) is a Lithuanian professional basketball player. Kaukėnas played in various European countries and won, among others, with Montepaschi Siena Italian Cup five times, including three times as a Double in conjunction with the victory in the Cup competition. Having already won Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius in 2002 with the Lithuanian championship, he could repeat this success in 2013 with Zalgiris Kaunas last. The Lithuanian National Team, two-time Olympian won a bronze medal at the European Championship finals in 2007.
Career
Kaukėnas emerged in 1996 as well as his compatriot Artūras Karnišovas to him to Seton Hall University in the NCAA, where he played until 2000. After a season in Israel with Hapoel Galil Elyon, he returned to Lithuania Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius to. With this club In 2002 he became Lithuanian champion and title holder of NEBL. There was a season in Belgium at Telindus Oostende before Kaukėnas played in the National Basketball League 2003/ 04 for the Telekom Baskets Bonn. He was elected the MVP that season of the BBL All- Star Games. 2004 Kaukėnas went to Italy to Vertical Vision Cantu, before he moved to Montepaschi Siena for the following season. With this club he won in 2007, 2008 and 2009 the Italian championship and was honored in 2007 as the most valuable player of the finals series. In early January 2008, he suffered a knee injury, by which he missed the Final Four of the Euro League and could accumulate again until the semi-finals of the Italian Cup. In July 2009 Kaukėnas moved to Spanish giants Real Madrid. There his contract was not renewed after one year due to lack of success, and Kaukėnas returned to Siena, where he again won two championships with the series champion. In the 2012/13 season he played in his home for Zalgiris Kaunas, which could clearly defeat the arch-rival and former club of Kaukėnas, Lietuvos Rytas, in the finals of the championship. At the beginning of the 2013/14 season got Kaukėnas after injury by Thomas Kelati a temporary contract at Laboral Kutxa from Vitoria-Gasteiz in the ACB league. He then moved back to Italy, where he played from mid- December 2013 for the first division Grissin Bon from the province of Reggio Emilia.
His debut in the national team was Kaukėnas 2000, he was also part of the squad for the European Championship 2001. During the following years, however, he stood in the shadow of Arvydas Macijauskas, so he did not belong to the European champions of 2003. When winning the bronze medal of the 2007 European Championship as well as the semi-finals at the Olympic basketball competition in 2008, however Kaukėnas was among the top performers of the national team.