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By: Nick Gibson / @euro_adventures

There’s an age old saying in Kaunus, Lithuania that goes a little something like this:

Welcome to Zalgiris. We’re excited to have you. Here’s your whistle and a clipboard. You’re fired.

When anything less than an undefeated LKL season plus a Baltic League crown is an embarrassment, I guess a stickler’s only option is to magnify the club’s results in a league where success varies.

So Ilias Zouros opened up the Euroleague with his Zalgiris squad up against CSKA Moscow this Monday. They lost that game 74-87 and now, BasketNews.lt is reporting that he’s been asked to pack up his things and hit the road.

The club’s sport director Vitoldas Massalski will give it a shot while Romanov searches for someone else to fire, and all eyes are fixated on national team coach Kestutis Kemzura, who is currently unemployed.

Also from BasketNews, here’s Vladimir Romanov’s fickleness, in chart form:

Coach Worked from
 To Reasons for withdrawal
Amber Krapikas In 2008October In 2009December Resigned
Ramunas Butautas In 2009December In 2010February Told to leave after losing to Vilnius Perlas, CSKA Moscow and Asseco Prokom
Darius Maskoliūnas In 2010February In 2010 May Accused of deliberately influencing the negative results of the LKL finals
Aco Petrovich In 2010June In 2010December Dismissed after losing to Mariupol Azovmash
Rimantas Grigas In 2010December In 2011January He returned to the role of sports director of the club, giving way to Zouros
Ilias Zouros In 2011January In 2011October Dismissed after poor season

Never mind the fact that Lithuania’s eastern neighbors at CSKA Moscow pulled together one of the scariest groups of hoopers this side of the Monstars. (Give me Monster Milos over Monster Muggsy any day.) One L and it’s adios, Ilias.

Granted, he probably shouldn’t have gone to zone against CSKA. Or stayed in zone. Or gone back to zone once he’d finally switched out of zone.

But damn.