Jonas Valančiūnas
Lithuanian basketball player (born 1992)
Jonas Valančiūnas ( YOH-nəss VAL-ən-CHOO-nəs; Lithuanian pronunciation: [ˈjoːnɐs vɐɫɐnʲˈtɕûːnɐs]; born 6 May 1992) is a Lithuanian professional basketball player for Žalgiris of the Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) and the EuroLeague. He was selected by the Toronto Raptors with the fifth overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft. He has also played for the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, Washington Wizards, Sacramento Kings, and Denver Nuggets.
Valančiūnas has been a member of the Lithuania national team since age 19. He won two EuroBasket silver medals in EuroBasket 2013 and EuroBasket 2015, earning All-Tournament honours in the latter. Valančiūnas also appeared in the documentary The Other Dream Team.
Professional career
Perlas (2008–2010)
Valančiūnas started playing professionally for Perlas in 2008. During the 2008–09 season the team played in the National Basketball League (NKL), Lithuania's second strongest league, but moved up to the top-tier Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) the following season. In January 2009 Valančiūnas signed a long-term contract with Lietuvos rytas, but, as Perlas was Lietuvos rytas' farm club, he did not immediately move to Lietuvos rytas, staying with Perlas for the first half of the 2009–10 season.
Lietuvos rytas (2010–2012)
On 17 January 2010, Valančiūnas finally moved to Lietuvos rytas.
The public source identifies “Jonas Valančiūnas” as lithuanian basketball player (born 1992). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jonas, Valančiūnas and Lithuanian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q380018. VIAF identifies the subject as 3985154260651524480008. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1992, 2011, 2013 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jonas Valančiūnas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.