Georgian forward Tornike Shengelia who becomes 21 years old on May 10 has officially made himself eligible for National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. Guy Zucker, agent of Georgian basketball player, informed DraftExpress agency.
Zucker is also agent of Marcin Gortat of Poland and Thabo Sefolosha of Switzerland who are playing in NBA. Besides that, this agent has rights on transfers of Manuchar Markoishvili and Giorgi Shermadini.
Member of Georgian national basketball team planned to make himself eligible for draft last year though then he decided to withdraw his candidature. After that Shengelia had injury and is getting on good form now. Last week Tornike earned 19 points and 9 rebounds at Belgian Championship and it was his most successful game recently.
In 2007 Shengelia went to Spain and played for “Valencia” for 3 years. Then, he became member of current club “Charleroi” and played on loan for Belgian “Pepinster”.
Tornike participated in all 8 games of Georgian national team at last EuroBasket. His average result was 8.8 points and 4.6 rebounds in 20.5 minutes. At Euroleague Georgian forward earned 8.3 points and 4.3 rebounds in 20.6 minutes.
DraftExpress wrote Shengelia in the 50th place among the most perspective players and wonders that “Denver Nuggets” will let him play as No.19 in the second round. Tornike is No.5 among foreign basketball players born in 1991. Only Tomas Satoransky of Czech Republic, Augusto Cesar Lima of Brazi, Furkan Aldemir of Turkey and Nemanja Nedovic of Serbia are ahead of Tornike.
2012 NBA draft will take place in New Jersey on June 28.
