Jānis Krūmiņš

The Soviet and Latvian basketball legend Jānis Krūmiņš was born on 30 January 1930 in Latvia. The 220-centimeter-tall center was the European equivalent of NBA’s George Mikan. Krūmiņš was the first true dominant European center, despite the fact that he began his basketball career very late, after being discovered by ASK Riga coach Alexander Gomelsky in 1953. Krūmiņš was 23 years old when he first picked up a ball. Until that, he was living a regular life, working in a forest as a lumberjack and collector of tree resin.

Two years later, he was already making a name for himself in the USSR Premier League, helping ASK win the league title and averaging 20.3 points per game. In total, the Soviet basketball legend won 4 consecutive USSR Premier League titles from 1955 to 1958, averaging 17.6 points per game in these four seasons. During his career, Krūmiņš played for ASK Rīga (1955-1963) and VEF Rīga (1964-1969) teams, eventually retiring at the age of 39.

In 1958, Krūmiņš made his EuroLeague debut and in total, he played 4 seasons in this competition, averaging 19.1 point per game. Eventually, the Latvian giant became the most dominant EuroLeague center in history in terms of accolades. No other player in history has been able to win three consecutive EuroLeague titles and Finals MVP awards combined. Krūmiņš was a dominant force on the court, and largely thanks to his efforts, ASK reached the EuroLeague Finals four seasons in a row. His best individual EuroLeague Finals performance was in the 1958 season, when he scored 32 points in a win against the Academic team.

After first 4 seasons in the competition, Krūmiņš was the EuroLeague all-time best scorer with 440 points in 23 games. The Latvian center had a great consistency during his European journey, being among the Top 20 best scorers in 4 EuroLeague seasons and Top 10 in three of those seasons.

Krūmiņš was also a leading Soviet Union national team player from 1956 to 1964, helping the Soviet team to reach three consecutive Olympic finals, as well as win three consecutive Eurobasket editions from 1959 to 1963. In his EuroLeague and international games from 1956 to 1964, Krūmiņš scored 927 points in 73 games.

After his retirement in 1969, Krūmiņš worked as a metalworker, living a quiet family life with his wife and three kids. Ironically, while being one of the EuroLeague’s greatest players of all-time, Krūmiņs wasn’t selected among the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors or FIBA’s 50 Greatest Players. He died on 20 November 1994, at the age of 64.

ACCOLADES

EuroLeague champion (1958, 1959, 1960)
EuroLeague (1961)
EuroLeague Finals MVP (1958, 1959, 1960)
EuroBasket (1959, 1961, 1963)
Olympic Games (1956, 1960, 1964)
FIBA World Cup (1959)
USSR Premier League (1955, 1956, 1957, 1958)
USSR Premier League (1962, 1964)
USSR Premier League (1959, 1961, 1963, 1966)

EUROLEAGUE STATISTICS

USSR PREMIER LEAGUE STATISTICS

OLYMPIC GAMES STATISTICS

FIBA WORLD CUP STATISTICS

EUROBASKET STATISTICS

Description for statistics

GP – Games played PPG – Points per game PTS – Total points RNK – Individual scoring ranking TRK – Team ranking