Sacramento Kings: Tracking Georgios Papagiannis’ Progress

The early selection of Georgios Papagiannis surprised draft experts last summer at the draft, but he’s now starting to get some much-needed experience playing with the Sacramento Kings.

As they often have at various times in recent years, the Sacramento Kings provided a stunner on the night of the draft last summer.

Through a trade with the Phoenix Suns, the Kings acquired the 13th overall pick, the 28th overall pick and the rights to international player Bogdan Bogdanovic.

It was with the 13th pick where the Kings made the most befuddling selection of the night, selecting 19-year-old big man Georgios Papagiannis of Greece.

Considering his age, his raw abilities and his general inexperience, Papagiannis was thought of as a likely draft-and-stash flier taken in the second round.

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What made matters more confusing was the Kings selecting another 7-footer in Skal Labissiere later in the first round with the aforementioned 28th overall pick.

Sacramento Kings

Throughout the year, most of Papagiannis’ experience on the floor didn’t come with the Kings.  Instead, it came with the team’s D-League affiliate, the Reno Bighorns.

Playing 23 games for the Bighorns, Papagiannis posted solid numbers, averaging 13.7 pointson 50.9 percent shooting from the field, 8.1 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game.

But given the team has completely fallen out of the playoff race in the West, the start of a youth movement has gradually gone into motion for the Kings.  With that, Papagiannis has gotten his first true run as part of the Kings for the first time in his young career.

Over the last week, Papagiannis’ minutes have picked up in each ensuing contest as he’s played 59 minutes over the last three games.  As much as his extended minutes are to give him some much-needed experience, Papagiannis has earned his minutes with his solid play off the bench.

The first thing that comes to mind is his ability to clean up on the glass.  Compiling double-digit rebounds in each of the team’s last two games, Papapgiannis showed plenty of promise by being active on the boards and getting some put-back opportunities as a result.

While his efficiency on the offensive end is still limited at this stage, Papagiannis already has a fine arsenal of moves for a big man his age, showcasing an array of hook shots and even stepping out and hitting a quick jumper from just inside the arc on a designed play.

As he showed in Reno, Papagiannis has also made an impact defensively as he’s recorded at least one block in each of his last four games.

He’ll ultimately have to deal with his limitations on that end of the floor unless he shows great improvement in his lateral mobility, but his size gives him an advantage in deterring shots at the rim.

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Again, the last week of play is just a brief sample of Papagiannis’ experience and it’s hard to ignore the fact that he’s still played less than 100 minutes with the Kings on the season.

As it goes for many of the players on the Kings’ roster, the rest of the season will be incredibly useful for Papagiannis to get more minutes and development under his belt.

However, it’ll be curious how much his growing experience on the floor will affect his status with the Kings at the start of next season.

Papagiannis still has a ways to go in refining his frame and conditioning, though it’s been said throughout multiple Kings’ broadcasts that he’s improved on his conditioning since coming to Sacramento.

Taking into account the wealth of big men ahead of Papagiannis on the team’s depth chart, it seems very likely that he will log the majority of his time once again in Reno next season, barring some unforeseen change.

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But you have to start somewhere and there’s hope from what we’ve seen from Papagiannis so far during his brief time with the Kings, despite how unexpected his arrival to Sacramento may have been.