Awesome work, objective. The videos I've watched of him in overseas action have been hit and miss. Sometimes he looks like he'll never be with 500 miles of an NBA court, other times he looks like he has promise.
That said, I was pretty darn impressed when we saw him in summer league. He had a lot of intangibles as far as instincts and knowing where to be. We saw so little of him in the summer league setting that it's difficult to make any conclusions but I think he's worth a chance. Bring him over and one of three things happens: 1) He impresses and can help out. 2) He shows potential and is kept in Austin for a year or two. 3) He sucks and the Spurs can waive him and move on.
None of those three scenarios are bad at this point. The only argument against it could be a lack of roster space ... but if it comes down to him or a retread like Udoka, I'd go with Sanikidze in a heartbeat.
Nice video!! I like the facial dunks, shot often with his lft hand, alot of good drives to the basket, nice blocks, seems like an emotional palyer (which the spurs desperatly need). Didn't see many jump shots but ya, give this guy a chance this summer.
like timvp and others have said, after hearing that the spurs drafted Sanikidze and doing some research on him, I really wanted the spurs to bring him over as soon as possible.
When he finally played in the Summer League, my excitement grew even more, he was probably the best player on that team before he was benched and got inconsistent minutes most of the summer league.
He runs well, especially with those long legs, he can make up a lot of ground quickly for blocks, like Prince does. Although his shot looks horrendous, he seems to be confident with his outside shot, it could be a situation like with Shawn Marion where it is too late to change his form and keep it how it is. Just work on getting the release quicker for the NBA game speed.
How long was the contract with his current Rock team? If it was only a 2 year deal, then the Spurs should bring him over now because the buyout should be minimum
Good points. I agree I'd like to try something new instead of falling back on someone like Udoka.
Watching all the videos of Sanikidze again, I just don't see any development in his body. He is still amazingly skinny. Even in the most recent videos, he has the arms of a 12-year-old anorexic female. I'm guessing the Spurs will take one look at his build and conclude he's not ready.
Even when he was looking better than expected in summer league, the Spurs coaches were scoffing at his chances in the NBA because they said he was way too skinny and weak. It doesn't look like he's gotten any stronger.
If I had to guess, the Spurs will hope he signs with a better team (maybe Gist's team?) and put him on a workout regimen. Unfortunately, I don't think they'll give him a shot until he bulks up even a little bit.
He'll never be a Spur...
I don't think his contract should be an issue. Rock is letting go of Tanoka Beard and publicly only commenting on maybe bringing back the 2 Georgians. There seems to be some government funding controversy amongst teams and Rock complaining that they're getting much less than other teams, at least that's what I could make out form the gibberish google translate produces.
Maybe so. My case to the Spurs would be they'd increase their chances of a successful investment by bringing him here and getting him on a real diet and exercise plan under the direction of their trainers, either with the Spurs or with the Toros. He's had such a rocky go of it with teams in Europe and problems with health (as I stated before, he had some kind of lingering flu or illness for awhile), that I don't think he'd get the attention he needs even with a higher quality euro-team. He's still young enough to at least add strength though perhaps not bulk.
And his contract wouldn't count 100% towards the tax as a second rounder! Brilliant!
I think the word 'intangibles' is the top thing that comes to mind for me with Sanikidze. Good things just seem to happen when he's playing, first saw it in summer league. As a comparison, I like his chances better than Marcus Williams for being able to contribute to a Spurs team.
Unfortunately if his national team schedule is the same as in 2007 that probably means no summer league this year, unless he wanted to squeeze in 2 games with the Spurs if that.
I don't see him being skinner than Kirilenko and Kirilenko would help the spurs at the three. At the three as long as he is tall and has lenght, which he does, i believe he can survive as is. As long as he is healthy.
he is pretty damn lanky. looks can be deceiving though because it's about strength, not mass. it's really impossible to determine if he's strong enough at the SF spot without getting to see how he functions against borderline NBA players. spurs have nothing to lose by bringing him over for the summer league. i hope summer league will be a SF roster spot slugfest where gist, sanikdze, hairston, williams, and whoever the spurs draft compete for the SF spots.
From what I see in those videos he is Rudy Fernandez minus the passing and shooting ability. I think third string SF for Spurs is possible.
As injury prone as Ian Mahinmi. They'd be the perfect pair in civilian clothes at the end of the bench.
his shooting stroke looked familiar and i didn't realize it until now but it looks a lot like barbosa's.
checking out the vid stats tonight I noticed a surge of viewers from Italy.
Doing some digging around I found the reason. Apparently Sanikidze is being pursued by Italian club Carife Ferrara, which plays in the A league. Last year they had such players as Ndudi Ebi, Allan Ray, and Harold Jamison. They finished 10th out of 16, 3 spots behind Gist's Biella team, at least in the point standings.
http://press.legabasket.it/frontend/...ata=2009-06-24
Didn't Sanikidze play in SL or camp a couple of years back? He wasn't very impressive, and if memory serves he's had a major injury since then. Am I thinking of someone else? This dude has been off my radar for a while. No way does he look better than Hairston or possibly even Marcus.
just imo, I like his NBA potential better.
Sanikidze did play in the 07 SL before national team commitments cut his time short. I doubt he'll play in the SL this year because the dates are even more in conflict with the NT but I should know for sure in a couple of days.
He did miss a lot of time in 07-08, but played nearly all the games in 08-09 for Rock Tartu except for some games missed due to illness. He was one of their best players too, especially towards the end of the season.
Still about 3 levels below a good Euroleague team.
according to this most recent article, Sanikidze is apparently a candidate to join . . .
Angelico Biela
What a coincidence.
http://www.basketnet.it/news/110228/La
Sounds good.
That'd be pretty awesome and would raise his chances of eventually making the NBA significantly.
A good step up in compe ion and a nice place for the Spurs to evaluate his progress more closely.
Hopefully it works out.
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