[Dooby]

Mick, I cut and pasted your post here.

I don't think this is the guy. He isn't listed on the draft list on NBA.com. This may or may not mean it can't be this Giedrus Rinkevcius guy, but is something to consider.

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Here is another candidate that Jay posted at dallasbasketball.com

>>And if ain't him, it's this guy
Giedrus Rinkevcius

I asked you to ask Donnie about him yesterday, fish. But you didn't.

Here's a story. It sounds mysterious . . .

Sabonis claims Þalgiris' rights for NBA draft early entrant


On the eve of the 2002 NBA Drafts, Arvydas Sabonis wants the basketball world to know more about one of the candidates, Giedrius Rinkevièius, in a letter he sent to the NBA Commissioner Mr. David Stern, FIBA, and NCAA authorities.

KAUNAS (June 24) - Among those who have applied for participation in the 2002 NBA Drafts, there are five Lithuanian players – Darius Songaila (Wake Forest), Arvydas Macijauskas (Lietuvos Rytas), Gintaras Kadþiulis (Alita), Saulius Kuzminskas (BC Ðiauliai), and Giedrius Rinkevièius (Bridgton Academy). Even though the basketball experts in their previews claim Darius Songaila to be the only Lithuanian that might be drafted this year, at the Þalgiris front office the predictions are somewhat different.

“To our knowledge, the Dallas Mavericks are rather seriously considering to use their only call, the 55th, on the Lithuanian early entrant Giedrius Rinkevièius,” says Mindaugas Plukas, President of the Kaunas team. “It won’t be any problem for us, if not the circumstances under which Giedrius has ended up overseas. Recently we have exchanged letters with the NBA Commissioner Mr.David Stern concerning the clearance issue for this player. The authorities in the NCAA have also been informed about the Rinkevièius case.”

According to Mr. Plukas, in their letter to the NBA Commissioner, he and Arvydas Sabonis, who is a co-owner of the Kaunas team, presented the evidence showing that 19-yr-old 218-cm Rinkevièius is still under the labor agreement he entered into with BC Þalgiris in September, 2000, after being for years with the ‘Arvydas Sabonis Basketball School’ program in Kaunas. The team paid him regularly the agreed salary as a professional player and has covered the costs of a major surgery and ensuing rehabilitation until he left for the United States last summer, neglecting all his commitments and without giving the team any notice. Once in the United States, Mr.Rinkevièius avoided any contacts whatsoever with BC Þalgiris trying to set up a sort of communication firewall. Messrs. Plukas and Sabonis were shocked by such behavior of Þalgiris young player, as well as by the fact that he had concealed his professional player past while pretending for the student-athlete status with the University of Missouri men’s basketball program, as he signed a National Letter of Intent last November. In their letter, the writers also emphasized that some of the decisions made by Mr.Rinkevièius apparently had been imposed on him by interested persons from an NBA team and their partners in Lithuania.

In the reply Messrs. Plukas and Sabonis have received last week from the NBA Commissioner’s office, they have been assured on Mr. Stern’s behalf that, under the NBA/FIBA agreement, the NBA would make its teams respect the Þalgiris rights and would prohibit them from signing Mr. Rinkevièius should he be drafted.

As concerns the NCAA, there are scores of Lithuanian players overseas, and some of them have joined college basketball programs in a way similar to Mr. Rinkevièius’, but this is the first case when a Lithuanian team strongly protests against the campaign of smuggling ex professional players into the NCAA.<<