Can Sandro Mamukelashvili Take The Next Step?
The uniquely skilled big man was a niche basketball Twitter and analytics darling. Now, he’ll need to deliver under a much brighter spotlight.
This is the second installment in our new player profile series.
We started with a mega deep dive into Walker Kessler, the Lakers’ most anticipated and costly acquisition of the summer, but also perhaps their most logical one.
Next up is Sandro Mamukelashvili.
The 6-foot-9, 27-year-old Georgian big man was probably Rob Pelinka’s most surprising and out-of-left-field signing, another fascinating piece of the Lakers’ massive summer makeover and the new vision for a team retrofitted around Luka Dončić.
Was this simply one of those “sign the player who played great against us” moves?
Mamukelashvili scored 20 points against the Lakers on January 18, including a huge 12-point first quarter. In the teams’ other matchup last season, he delivered the ultimate role-player, all-around game: 13 points, eight rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocks.
Or is there a more nuanced case to be made for how his unusual combination of size, skill and energy fits this new Lakers team?
Let’s dig in.
Today’s highlights:
The vision
The skill set
Another connector with a motor
Dribble, pass and shoot from the big-man position
Will the defense be a problem?
The bold investment
The concern
1-The vision
Of the four new Lakers additions that hit us during that crucial 30-minute span on July 1, “Mamu” initially felt like the most puzzling. Especially considering the cost of a four-year, $52 million fully guaranteed deal. But once the initial surprise wore off and I thought through the Lakers’ new direction, the logic became easier to see.
An offensively minded, multiskilled big man fits many of the defining pillars of the new team I identified after that big-bang makeover.
A player on the Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves timeline? Check.
More shooting and spacing? Check.
Going all-in on three-point volume? Check.
More speed and more dribbling? Check.
A role player who understands his role and can help form a more cohesive, better-connected unit? Check.
Mamukelashvili is coming off a career year in which he played a key role off the bench for the Raptors and set new personal highs in games played, points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks per game. He did it all with impressive efficiency, posting a career-high 61.4% effective field-goal percentage while continuing his transformation into a high-volume three-point shooter. Mamu attempted 296 threes and converted nearly 39% of them. For comparison, that was 34 more attempts than Rui Hachimura despite playing 176 fewer minutes.
And Hachimura might not even be the best comparison, as Mamukelashvili played most of his minutes as a hybrid small-ball center. Getting that kind of three-point volume from one of your big men is even more impressive.
