Jonas Kazlauskas

Lithuanian professional basketball coach and player
the academic who died in mysterious circumstances

Jonas Kazlauskas (born 21 November 1954) is a Lithuanian professional basketball coach and former player. He was most recently the head coach of the Guangdong Southern Tigers in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).

Kazlauskas played for Statyba Vilnius from 1973 to 1985. He won a bronze medal in the former USSR Supreme League in 1979.

Kazlauskas is considered to be one of the best coaches from Europe. In the past, he has coached Lithuania's top two pro club basketball teams, Žalgiris Kaunas (1994–2000) and Lietuvos rytas Vilnius (2001–2004). In October 2004, he became the head coach of Olympiacos Piraeus, and later moved to CSKA Moscow during the 2010–11 season. Kazlauskas took a position with the Guangdong Southern Tigers for the latter stage of the 2012–13 Chinese Basketball Association season, serving as "executive coach" to fill the role of experienced mentor for newly appointed head coach Du Feng, and helping guide the team to their record tying eighth title in the 2013 CBA Finals. He retained his role with Guangdong for the 2013–14 CBA season but the squad lost in the semi finals of the 2014 CBA Playoffs. Kazlauskas returned to the Southern Tigers as head coach for the 2017–18 CBA season, while Du was serving as head coach with the "China Blue" version of the country's national team, and led a rebuilding side to third place with 28 wins in 38 regular season games before the youthful squad were eliminated in the semi finals of the 2018 CBA Playoffs. He handed the head coaching job back to Du after the season.

In 1997, Kazlauskas became the head coach of the Lithuanian national team with whom he won bronze medals at 2000 Summer Olympics and held that position until the end of EuroBasket 2001. In 2004, he joined the China national team as the assistant coach to Del Harris, and then served as the head coach from 2005 to 2008, winning the 2005 Asian championship. From 2009 to 2010, Kazlauskas served as the head coach of the Greek national team and guided them to bronze medals at EuroBasket 2009. In 2012, he returned to Lithuanian national team and guided them to consecutive silver medals at 2013 and 2015 EuroBasket tournaments. In 2016, Kazlauskas left the team for the second time after his 4 year contract expired after the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Kazlauskas and his wife have two daughters. He likes tennis, crosswords and computer games.