Modestas Paulauskas

Paulauskas spent his whole club career with Lithuanian teams: Neptūnas Klaipėda, Atletas Kaunas, Žalgiris Kaunas, despite getting attention from teams based in Western Europe and the National Basketball Association (NBA). He could not join them due to various reasons, one of such is Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union at that time, and it was very hard to travel abroad USSR. The other reason was he never actually wanted to leave his homeland – Lithuania. He was also asked to join Žalgiris Kaunas's main rival, CSKA Moscow, but he declined. Paulauskas, nicknamed "Iron Modė", would often score half points for his team even before the introduction of the three-point line. ==National team career==

Then just 20-year-old Paulauskas debuted in the senior Soviet Union men's national basketball team during the EuroBasket 1965, led the Soviet team to a EuroBasket title and was named the FIBA EuroBasket MVP (he is the all-time youngest player to receive this award). ==Coaching career==

After retiring from playing basketball competitions, Paulauskas worked as a coach of the Soviet Union junior national teams from 1977 to 1989. In the early 1990s, he was the head coach of his native club, Žalgiris Kaunas. After that, he coached basketball in schools, both in Lithuania and in Russia. ==Notes==