Here on Brooklyn Balling, I’ll try to recap the chaos that was the 2013-14 Nets season with a series of “Season Review” posts on the players, trades, and even coach that shaped how this year turned out. Brook Lopez was last, and Tornike Shengalia is up next.
In the 2012 NBA Draft, the Nets only had one pick of their own, the 57th overall selection, with which they selected Turkish forward Ilkan Karaman (who has yet to transition to the NBA from Europe). However, they managed to buy into the second round twice, sending cash to the Portland Trail Blazers for the 41st pick and Philadelphia 76ers for the 54th pick. With the Portland pick, they took Tyshawn Taylor and with the Philly pick, Tornike “Toko” Shengalia.
Interestingly enough, both players remained with the Nets for the exact amount of time before being traded–on the same day (January 21st, 2014)–to the Pelicans (Taylor) and Bulls (Shengalia) respectively. And in the roughly 1.5 seasons both players spent with the Nets, they served basically the same role (Taylor’s Season Review can be found here).
The Georgia (country, not the state) native was lightly used, to say the least, by Jason Kidd who played him for a grand total of 137 minutes in 17 games, good for averages of 8.1 minutes, 1.5 points, and 0.8 minutes per contest, mostly in garbage time. He didn’t play much more the season before, his rookie campaign, appearing in just 19 games, so clearly Toko wasn’t a huge part of the Nets’ plans going forward.
So when he was shipped off to the Bulls in exchange for Marquis Teague, it really wasn’t that surprising, and the move didn’t really have much of an effect on either team’s fortunes. He didn’t play much for Chicago and after the Bulls were eliminated, signed a three-year contract with a Spanish team (Baskonia) that Mirza Teletovic had previously played for.
So now Toko is out of the NBA just two years after he entered it, and who knows if he’ll be bad. The Nets may not have him as a player anymore, but they’ll always have that game last year against the Wizards in which he put up an 11-point, 11-rebound double-double. It’s the small things.
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