The Spanish club has offered Schmidt the most lucrative contract of his career so far – Basketball – Sportacentrs.com

The information at the disposal of “Sportacentrs.com” shows that Valencia has made an offer to Rolandas Šmitas, the power forward of Kaunas “Žalgiris” and the Latvian national team, for the next three seasons, the basketball player receiving more than one million euros in each of them.

At the end of May last year, Šmits extended his contract with the Lithuanian basketball flagship Kaunas “Žalgiris” until 2025/2026. at the end of the season and became green-white highest paid player. After the change of coaches in January, when the Italian strategist Andrea Trinchieri took the helm of the Kaunas team, the role of the Valmieri player decreased a little and there were rumors about Schmidt’s potential move to another place next season.

The Spanish ACB League and ULEB Euroleague team “Valencia” is said to be one of the main candidates for the lure of Šmitas, while the “Monaco” unit has also previously shown interest in the services of the Latvian national basketball player. Valencia was one of the teams that showed an active interest in Schmidt’s services before joining the Kaunas unit.

If the Monaco club has the right to compete in the Euroleague next season as well, then Valencia does not yet have one. Last week, EuroLeague manager Paulius Motejūns told the Spanish media AS that one of the five teams (“Valencia”, Berlin’s ALBA, Bologna’s “Virtus”, Belgrade’s “Partizan” or Belgrade’s “Crvena Zvezda”) next season will start at a lower level – in the ULEB Eurocup. This is explained by the fact that this season’s Eurocup winner Paris Basketball plans to use the won next season wildcard and compete in the Euroleague. The information at the disposal of the portal “Sportacentrs.com” shows that the decision on which team to weed out will be between the Berlin and Valencia clubs. The decision is expected after the end of the season, but it may be distorted by the situation of Vitoria “Baskonia”. The club of the Basque Country risks not getting into the playoffs of the Spanish championship and ending the main tournament even in the second ten, which may mean the loss of the Euroleague license.

28-year-old Rolands Šmits is playing his second season in Kaunas “Žalgiris”. In this season, in 31 Euroleague matches, the Valmieri averaged 10.5 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists – it became the most productive season of his career so far in Europe’s strongest club tournament. In the Lithuanian championship, Šmit averaged 7.8 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 24 games played.

Before moving to Kaunas, the Latvian represented Spanish clubs for many years – “Fuenlabrada” and its youth system, as well as the Spanish giant “Barcelona”, for which he played from 2018 to 2022.