Jonas Valanciunas: 'I used to transport coffins in my childhood' / News - Basketnews.com

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Jonas Valanciunas has been in the NBA since 2012. He's been on contending teams, he's been on rebuilding teams. While the average career in the top league is around 5 years, the Lithuanian center has already doubled the number and is not ready to stop.

Jonas Valančiūnas

MIN:30.19PTS:17.45 (60.37%)REB:11.61As:2.57ST:0.57BL:0.77TO:2.39GM:82ProfileNBA2021/2022

Before playing for the Lithuanian national team in August and September, the New Orleans Pelicans center sat down to talk about his life on and off the court with Lithuanian TV host Justinas Jankevicius in a specialized show.

Interestingly enough, Valanciunas was pressured to go to dancing lessons early in his childhood instead of basketball despite his height.

"Kid, what are you going to do with basketball? You're not going to make a living out of it. Dancing is at least pleasant to look at," the center jokingly named the reasons others told back then. "It was an order for me to go there. I used to go dancing on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and then as a bonus, I'd have basketball practices on Thursdays and Fridays."

"I remember one Wednesday I tried sneaking out of the dancing lessons to go to the basketball practice," JV recalled. "My mom somehow found out about it, drove to the basketball school, and dragged me out of there as I was standing in the middle of the court. I did not go to the practice the next day, I was that embarrassed."

Being a kid from the small town of Utena, he was always ready to help with whichever things he was asked to do whether it was mowing the lawn, digging snow, or anything else. However, there was an unusual activity for a child that Valanciunas experienced in his early days.

"I used to spend my summers in a village near my hometown with my aunt and uncle," the center remembered. "I used to drive together with my uncle, and he used to transport coffins. He worked at a coffin factory and transported them."

"He would stack the coffins to go on his routes. As a kid, I always wanted to help but didn't exactly know how. So he used to stack the adult coffins and I would do the same with child coffins," Valanciunas shared.

Later on, Valanciunas was asked about the so-called gold diggers, i.e. women who strive to be with men only because of their money. Rookie NBA players are given specific training on how to avoid them in a special meeting after the draft as well as other advice, including investing, league matters, and more.

"The information leaks out. They find out about future parties in advance from various people," he talked about the way the gold diggers operate. "They don't invite the girls that read, they invite those that don't. Only the players that lack reading get affected."

"It's really easy to get into it. It doesn't take long to baffle your brain. There were some guys, especially youngsters, who got into it. The pre-season training is there for a reason," Valanciunas explained.

Full show with Jonas Valanciunas (in Lithuanian):

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