Šarūnas Marčiulionis

• 1. Introduction

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  Šarūnas Marčiulionis carried two bags when he left Kaunas for Vilnius. One held almost nothing in the way of clothes. The other was packed with apples. Those were the only provisions his parents could offer when their son left for the Soviet capital of Lithuanian student life. Born on the 13th of June, 1964, Marčiulionis was the second son of a geography teacher and an engineer. The system he competed within was Soviet. The country he would fight to represent on the world stage did not yet exist as an independent nation. How does a player from those conditions become one of the first Europeans to earn regular time in the NBA? And what does he do when his country gains independence mid-career and needs him to rebuild its national team by hand? The thread connecting all of it begins with a 1985 game in Vilnius.

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• 2. Kaunas Childhood

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  The middle name Šarūnas came from a legendary knight in the works of Lithuanian writer Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius. His mother Laimutė had suffered a spinal injury giving birth to his sister Zita. Her determination to then have a son drove her to choose that name, invoking an old heroic tradition.

  Marčiulionis took up tennis as a child, playing ambidextrously with a focus on forehands. As he grew and his frame filled out, his unorthodox technique stopped working in his favor. At 13, a hospitalization following an accident involving makeshift explosives ended his tennis days. Basketball followed.

  In the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, resources for young athletes were scarce. Marčiulionis and his friends built their own outdoor basketball court, laying it out in a parking lot. He moved to Vilnius to study journalism at Vilnius State University of Vincas Kapsukas, hoping also to try out for the Soviet junior national team. He rarely played basketball while in college there, but a scout from Statyba, a club in the USSR Premier League, noticed him in 1981. He would stay with the club for eight seasons.

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• 3. Road to the NBA

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  During a 1985 game in Vilnius against Athletes in Action, Marčiulionis struck up a friendship with one of the opposing players. That player was Donnie Nelson, and though the two barely shared a language, a bond formed. Nelson's father, Don Nelson, would later become head coach of the Golden State Warriors. Word of Marčiulionis's skills reached the Warriors, and they selected him in the sixth round of the 1987 NBA draft.

  Stan Kasten, president and general manager of the Atlanta Hawks, moved to void the pick. He demonstrated that Marčiulionis was 23 years old, one year above the age the draft rules permitted for European players at the time. Marčiulionis became the last NBA player to have a draft selection invalidated on those age grounds. The Hawks then pursued him directly, using Ted Turner's connections with the Soviet Union. Atlanta arranged matches in Moscow in 1988 and invited Soviet players to its training camp. Marčiulionis signed a contract with the Hawks the day after he won gold at the 1988 Summer Olympics. The Soviet authorities refused to let him leave.

  Donnie Nelson's influence ultimately kept Marčiulionis connected to Golden State. In 1989, he signed a three-year, $3.8 million contract with the Warriors, becoming the first Soviet player to join the North American league. He played four seasons with Golden State, finishing as runner-up for the Sixth Man of the Year Award in the 1991-92 season.

  In 1994, after more than a year lost to a leg injury, Marčiulionis was traded along with Byron Houston to the Seattle SuperSonics. The Warriors received Carlos Rogers, Ricky Pierce, and two second-round picks in the deal. In 1995, Marčiulionis and Houston moved again, this time to the Sacramento Kings in a trade for Frank Brickowski. He closed out his NBA career with the Denver Nuggets in the 1996-97 season. Lithuanian independence, restored in 1990, would give him something more to compete for than any NBA contract.

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• 4. Rebuilding Lithuania

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  Following the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990, Marčiulionis took on the task of building the national basketball team nearly from scratch. He contacted prospective players, encouraged several to join, and selected the team uniforms. He also negotiated a shoe deal and arranged sponsorships for the program.

  Among the sponsors he lined up was the rock band Grateful Dead, who had read about him and the team in the San Francisco Chronicle. The band helped launch a line of tie-dyed jerseys in Lithuania's national colors. A slam-dunking skeleton, created by New York artist Greg Speirs, appeared on those jerseys. Speirs donated every cent of his profits from the design to fund the team and Lithuanian children's charities, contributing at least $450,000. Bank of America was also among the sponsors Marčiulionis secured.

  Marčiulionis ultimately raised $200,000 for Lithuania's participation at the 1992 Summer Olympics. The team delivered: in the bronze medal game, they defeated the Unified Team, 82-78. That opponent was a squad composed of players from former Soviet states outside the Baltic region.

  At the 1995 FIBA EuroBasket, Marčiulionis was named tournament MVP and top scorer, helping Lithuania to a silver medal. He won a second bronze medal with Lithuania at the 1996 Summer Olympics. In 1987, 1989, 1990, and 1991, he was voted the best sportsman in Lithuania. Their 1992 campaign was later told in The Other Dream Team, a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. Lionsgate distributed it in the United States; Disney handled international distribution.

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• 5. The Euro Step

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  At the 1982 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship, Marčiulionis won a gold medal playing for the Soviet junior team. The following year, he earned a silver medal at the 1983 FIBA Under-19 World Cup, held in Spain.

  For years, Marčiulionis was among the last players cut from the senior Soviet national team training camps. He finally earned a regular spot in 1987, delivering a standout performance at that year's EuroBasket tournament, where the Soviets won silver. He was also elected to the All-EuroBasket Team that year.

  In the NBA, Marčiulionis became closely associated with the Euro step. That move involves taking two large lateral steps to slip past a defender rather than driving straight to the basket. He used it across his seven NBA seasons. Manu Ginóbili popularized the move in the mid-2000s, but Marčiulionis had been using it in the league long before. His NBA career, spanning 363 regular-season games, averaged 12.8 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game.

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• 6. Off the Court

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  In 1987, Marčiulionis helped a man from Panevėžys whose son needed an artificial heart valve. Working through Donnie Nelson, he arranged for the teenager to receive the operation in the United States.

  After the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, Marčiulionis arrived at the scene of a commuter train accident still wearing his Warriors warm-up outfit. He helped pull trapped passengers free and administered first aid at the site.

  After he joined the Warriors, his wife Inga enrolled at Merritt College in California. She walked on to the women's basketball team and became a star player across two seasons. She entered the small group of 147 women in women's college basketball history to score 50 or more points in a single game. After graduating, Inga joined the Merritt College faculty, served as head coach of the women's basketball team, and eventually became head of the kinesiology department.

  Marčiulionis and Inga later divorced and have one daughter. He married Laura Mikelionytė on the 10th of March, 2012. His son Augustas made his debut in the Lithuanian Basketball League on the 19th of September, 2020. He played for Rytas Vilnius, his father's first professional club. Augustas played on an amateur contract to preserve his NCAA eligibility. In June 2021, he signed a letter of intent to attend Saint Mary's College.

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• 7. New Institutions

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  In 1992, Marčiulionis opened the Šarūnas Hotel in Vilnius. The following year, he founded the Lithuanian Basketball League, known as the LKL, and became its first president. Both moves came while he was still active as an NBA player.

  In 1999, he founded the North European Basketball League and became its commissioner. The NEBL was eventually absorbed into the Baltic Basketball League.

  On the 14th of February, 2014, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced Marčiulionis as one of its incoming inductees. He formally entered the Hall on the 8th of August that year. The FIBA Hall of Fame followed on the 19th of September, 2015.

  The Šarūnas Hotel closed on the 2nd of October, 2015. The nearby Šarūnas Marčiulionis Basketball Academy closed after the 2015-16 season.

  Between 1995 and 1996, Lithuania honored him with three separate grades of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas. These ranged from the Officer's Cross to the Commander's Grand Cross.

  On the 26th of May, 2019, Marčiulionis was elected to serve in the Ninth European Parliament. He announced two days later that he was giving up the seat.

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