Sacramento Kings Report Card: Georgios Papagiannis
By Tyler Watts
This series examines the Sacramento Kings players’ most recent season giving them a performance grade. Today we will take a look at Georgios Papagiannis.
Our 2016-2017 Season Report Card of the Sacramento Kings series continues today as we take a look at Georgios Papagiannis. Big George was the 13 overall selection in the 2016 NBA Draft and like many rookies did not see much action early in the season.
The DeMarcus Cousins trade was really the turning point in Papagiannis’ season. Before the trade, Georgios Papagiannis played in just four of 58 games and saw a total of 18 minutes on the court. There was just nothing to glean from that because we never saw him the on-court for more than a few minutes in a blowout game.
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After the trade went down, Papagiannis finally started receiving minutes. He closed the season averaging 18.8 minutes per game in March and 23.5 in April. Papagiannis always seemed to be the low man on the center totem pole, though. Not a great sign for his prospects going forward.
Georgios is still just 19 years old and has plenty of time and room to develop.
Let us examine his season a little closer and give him a grade for his 2016-2017 performance.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: For this series, the players on the Kings will be graded on a curve, meaning that the grades handed out to each player reflect more about their ranking on the team rather than their actual performance grade.