The patron saint of the has gone missing.
For the first time in its existence, Jonas Valanciunas is not a participant. He was the only player in the NBA who had appeared in all six installments of the Play-In, from 2020-25, despite suiting up for four different teams in that time.
“You trying to insult me?” he joked when informed the streak was officially over Sunday.
It’s not an insult, but not exactly a compliment to any of his recent teams either. Throughout the 2020s, Valanciunas had been stuck in the middle. He’s finally skipping the line this week and going directly from the regular season into a first-round series between the Nuggets and Timberwolves, while eight other teams battle for the last four playoff spots.
“I’m happy to be in the playoffs,” the Lithuanian center told The Denver Post, laughing. “I’m happy. I’m in a great spot. … What happened in the past happened in the past. Not gonna change it.”
Valanciunas, 33, started the decade in Memphis with a season-ending loss to Portland in the inaugural Play-In Tournament. The event’s current structure was introduced the following year. The seventh- and eighth-place teams in the standings play each other for the No. 7 seed. The ninth- and 10th-place teams face off in an elimination game. Then the winner of that game takes on the loser of the seventh-place game to decide the No. 8 seed. The idea was to increase the breadth of teams that would have a reason to compete at the end of the regular season.
As a mechanism to prevent tanking, it has failed spectacularly. But it did succeed at giving NBA fans a lot of high-stakes games involving Jonas Valanciunas.
In 2021, he helped the Grizzlies climb out of ninth place into a playoff spot with two consecutive wins. (He amassed 23 points and 23 rebounds in one of them.) In 2022, the Pelicans pulled off the same feat with Valanciunas at center. In 2023, they were eliminated in the No. 9 vs. No. 10 game. In 2024, they weaseled their way in as the No. 8 seed. In 2025, Valanciunas was traded twice and finished the season with the Sacramento Kings, who sputtered in the Play-In.
It’s a 5-4 record across six years.
But this April, he’s trading that experience for backup center minutes on a team that gives him the best chance he’s ever had to win a championship, as he put it before training camp.
“I feel the same way now,” Valanciunas said. “But we’ve gotta do it. It’s not about what we feel now. It’s what we’re gonna do. Motivation, yes, there is motivation (after years in the Play-In). But consistency, hard work, giving everything on the court, that’s what we need do.”
The big man’s role will be in flux from series to series. He finished the regular season strong, with 14.5 points per game on 64% shooting over Denver’s last six. But he had been out of the rotation prior to that stretch because David Adelman wanted to experiment with a small-ball second unit against stretch fives. Spencer Jones functioned as a quasi-backup center. Then he suffered a minor hamstring injury. Valanciunas filled back in. When Adelman was asked if Val’s recent play has changed his thinking about the playoff rotation, the first-year coach was transparent.
“It hasn’t changed anything in the sense of what I knew he could bring to the table,” Adelman said. “But I do know that we’ve had success both ways. He’s been good as of late. We’ve played a lot of teams obviously that have been extremely small, sitting guys out, and he’s dominated these teams, as he should. He’s a big time player in our league. And then I’ve seen us go small, like in San Antonio (in March), and flip a game with Spence. So I think those are going to be feel things. And then also … the matchup thing does matter. If teams can spread you out with five shooters, that makes it tougher (to play Valanciunas). If he has a matchup where we can put in a proper coverage situation defensively, give him a chance, we know what he can do offensively.”
The oddity of the Minnesota matchup is that Valanciunas might be more viable on paper against starting center Rudy Gobert than he would be against Naz Reid, the Wolves’ sharpshooting backup.
“It’s not about individual (minutes),” Valanciunas said. “It’s about the team. Whatever works for the team, whatever adds more points than opponents, we rock with it. This was not a place to have an ego all season, but post-regular season, it’s even less of that. We’re working toward something big. It’s not about me (or) somebody else. If a small lineup works, we rock with it. If it doesn’t work, we do something else. Whatever works.”
In the meantime, the 7-footer can enjoy a few nights on the couch before playoff basketball. It’s the first time he’s had that luxury in eight years.
And it’s good timing. The Denver experience can be tough on a newcomer.
“I just adjusted to the altitude,” Valanciunas told The Post after Game 82. “So just by the end of the season.”
