Paulius Jankunas – The regular season MVP of the SEB BBL Elite Division

In the SEB BBL Elite Division the regular season is over, play-off pairs and two out of four teams participating in the Final Four tournament are known. Nothing has changed during this year as Kaunas Zalgiris and Vilnius Lietuvos Rytas are the teams already securing place for the Final Four tournament.

But now let’s get down to the regular season MVP title in the SEB BBL Elite Division. Paulius Jankunas from the team Kaunas Zalgiris is the winner of the MVP title of the regular season 2008/2009. He collected 21,8 efficiency points and beat Charles Eidson from Lietuvos Rytas and Ronald Clark from team Valmiera who collected 20,9 and 20,7 efficiency points respectively.

During the whole season Paulius Jankunas on average scored 15,4 points per game. Additionally, Jankunas on average grabbed 7,7 rebounds per game entering the best rebounder list as the third one right behind centers Tanoka Beard from Tartu Rock and Demetrius Alexander from Barons/LMT Riga. Moreover, Zalgiris player made 1,5 assists and 1,6 steals per game. Lithuanian player was the fifth in the league by two point shot field goal percentage showing 58,6%. What is more he realized 80,5% of his free-throws as well. Paulius Jankunas collected five double-doubles in season as well. In this measure Jankunas entered a shared second place in the league. One more specific measure is fouls drawn and there have been on average 4,9 fouls per game drawn against Jankunas.

Paulius Jankunas set a season record for collecting the highest efficiency coefficient in one game. On the third of January 2009 in the winning game against Ventspils he collected 45 efficiency points. In the same game he set one more record as he realized 15 free-throws. This regular season record is shared with Ingus Bankevics from Valmiera. Additionally, it is important to emphasize the results of the team as well. Kaunas Zalgiris finished the regular season in the second spot of the tournament table automatically securing a place for the Final Four tournament as well.