December 3, 2013

Bench Profiles: The Brooklyn Nets’ Tornike Shengelia

Tornike-Shengeli

This is Tornike Shengelia. If you’re having trouble pronouncing his name, in his native Georgian, it’s თორნიკე შენგელია. So I’m glad any miscommunication is cleared up. If for some reason you still can’t pronounce it, his nickname is “Toko”.

So being the first non-American player, I bet you’re wondering what his basketball story is, ain’t ya?

Well, he was born in Tbilisi, Georgia–the country, not the state Growing up in Georgia, he was probably the best the basketball player he knew–you know, because he’s huge and ended up in the NBA. He’s a 6’9″ power forward who played in the Euroleague for the Spirou Basket Club of Belgium. For the team, he played in nine games, and averaged 8.3 PPG and 4.3 RPG in 20.6 minutes a game. Scintillating.

He  declared for the 2012 draft and was picked 54th overall by the Eastern Conference powerhouse, Philadelphia 76ers. He was then traded to the equally powerful of a house, Brooklyn Nets for “cash considerations”. That is, he was given away for a couple bucks. Maybe they’ll consider sending cash in exchange for him. It’s all still very up in the air, but it’s being considered.

For Brooklyn, he is tearing it up! In his second season, he has career averages of 1.5 PPG, 1.2 RPG, and 0.0 BPG. Talk about a basketball stud.

So he’s foreign, right? Correct. So do they even have social media in Georgia? First, that’s ignorant to ask. Second, yes. Lemme enlighten you as to how good he is at social media.

He has a twitter account under the username @TokoShengelia23. He has been online since November 8th, so he obviously is very good at it.

Here’s his cute first tweet:

Aw, double smiley face. Don’t you just wanna eat him up?

Now look at his keyboard symbol game being on point:

That’s right, there’s an airplane, and two snowflakes.

So obviously they have social media in Georgia, and they’re crushing it. That’s pretty much it about Toko Ono. He’s a basketball player from Atlanta, Georgia and he plays for the Brooklyn Dodgers, or something.

Come back next week, when I profile the 15th man for the Chicago Bulls!

Have a great week, y’all.

Post Script: Here is Toko tearing it up in the Euroleague, kinda.

So amazing.

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