Jānis Blūms | Photo: Cynthia Zanderson/LETA
The former captain of the Latvian national basketball team, Jānis Blūms, will play the final game of his career, announced the municipality of Saldus region. The game is scheduled for September 17 at 18:00 Saldu. The price of the entrance ticket is 10 euros.
Blum, together with his friends from his basketball career, will compete against the local “Saldus” team. Blūma’s team will include Latvian basketball legends such as Andris Biedriņš, Kaspars Kambala, Kristaps Valters, Armands Škēle and others. They will also be joined by well-known Lithuanians in European basketball Renald Seibutis and Croatian Marko Banic.
In July of last year, Bloom returned to his familiar Italian Serie A unit Unahotels of Reggio di Emilia. The team terminated Blum’s contractual obligations in mid-December. Blum participated in four matches in the Italian Serie A last season, scoring 1.5 points in 7.5 minutes on average.
In the 2019/20 season, Blum returned to “VEF Rīga” and spent an average of 20.1 minutes on the field in 20 Latvian-Estonian championship games, scoring an average of 10.4 points. He also averaged 1.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. On the other hand, in the FIBA Champions League, the basketball player averaged 9.4 points, 1.8 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 11 games. “VEF Rīga” with Blūma in the team was also recognized as the winner of the Latvian Basketball League in the 2019/20 season.
Even before returning to Riga, Blums played a season in the Russian club “Parma” of Perm. In the 2015/16 season, Blum represented the Italian A-series club Avelino “Sidigas”, but due to an injury, he played only nine games in the local championship. Even before that, he played for the Greek giants Panathinaikos of Athens.
During his career, Blum also played in the Latvian clubs “Brocēni”, “Skonto” and “Ventspils”, becoming the national champion twice, as well as in the Wloclaveks “Anwil” team from Poland, in the Lithuanian unit “Lietuvos rytas” in Vilnius, in the Italian club “Eldo” in Naples. , in the Spanish unit Bilbao “Basket”, as well as in the champion of Kazakhstan “Astana”. The captain of the Latvian national team has participated in six European championships as part of the national team, appearing in a total of 170 games.
