Among the many EuroLeague players that the city of Kaunas has produced, two will be on the floor in their hometown at the 2023 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four. They are Rokas Jokubaitis of FC Barcelona and Donatas Motiejunas of AS Monaco.
Sixteen years after being chosen as the 2007 ANGT MVP, Motiejunas, who was born in Kaunas, has made it to the Final Four for the first time. Jokubaitis is from Mazeikiai, a city close to the Latvian border, and joined the Zalgiris Basketball Academy as a teenager. He is in his second consecutive Final Four with Barca.
Kaunas was announced as the 2023 Final Four host in mid-December and it was game-changing news for both Jokubaitis and Motiejunas.
"As soon as they announced, I bought four tickets for my parents to see this show," Motiejunas said. "You know, not every day you see the Final Four of EuroLeague, four EuroLeague teams in this city playing at the same time at the highest level. So this event is highly expected, a lot of people are really, really expecting this."
Motiejunas was away from the EuroLeague for more than a decade, but being in the Final Four was always in the back of his mind.
"There were so many things in my career. I went to the States, I went to China, changed continents... A lot of things happened in my career. And right now, going towards the end of it, I made it to the Final Four. It's an amazing feeling and, I think, an amazing accomplishment."