Viktor Sanikidze
Viktor Sanikidse (Georgian ვიქტორ სანიკიძე; born April 1, 1986 in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR) is a Georgian professional basketball player. He was selected as a 18 -year-old junior player in the NBA Draft in 2004, never played later, however, in the most highly endowed American professional league NBA, but at various European clubs. From 2009, he played four years in the Italian Serie A, where he was in 2013 with Montepaschi Siena Italian masters. Since 2013 he plays for CAI Zaragoza again in the Spanish ACB League, where he was active for CB Estudiantes already in the 2006/07 season.
Career
After Sanikidse had spent as a 15- year-old a few months at the Junior College Globe Institute of Technology in New York City, Sanikidse moving in 2003 from his hometown in the squad of the French first division Jeanne d' Arc from the Burgundian Dijon, who at that time several Georgian player began. During this time Sanikidse reached with the association, the final match of the FIBA EuroCup Challenge 2004, in which the young man Sanikidse was not used and that went against the German representative agent German BC, in whose ranks with Manutschar Markoischwili was another compatriot of Sanikidse lost. The following NBA Draft, he was something of a surprise already selected as the 18 -year-old from the Atlanta Hawks in the second round, which charges him on the same day in a change at the San Antonio Spurs, who owned the NBA rights to Sanikidse below. But with Sanikidse also came early to injury problems with his knees that had to be treated surgically, so that he no championship game in France, graduated in 2005/ 06.
After Sanikidse had recovered and in 2006 with the Georgian junior national team as tournament MVP won the Division B of the U20 European Championship and thus the rise in the Division A, he moved to the Spanish ACB League on MMT Estudiantes in Madrid. In this club he was used in only one-third of the championship games and also had to contend with appendicitis. Estudiantes reached the Final Four tournament of FIBA Euro Cup, in which he was, however, used only in the final defeat in the match for third place against Virtus Bologna for twelve minutes. After an appearance in the NBA Summer League in Jersey of the San Antonio Spurs, he played in the 2007/ 08 season in his home at BK Dinamo Tbilisi, where he was awarded the MVP of the Georgian championship season. In the 2008 /09 season Sanikidse then played for the Estonian Tartu rock masterpiece, in which he played together with his peers and fellow countryman Giorgi Tsintsadze but he lost the championship final in Estonia. In the Euro Challenge 2008 / 09, as the FIBA Euro Cup was now, Sanikidse again made unpleasant acquaintance with the eventual winners Virtus Bologna, the eliminated as a preliminary round group winners among other Tartu from the competition.
Virtus Bologna even undertook however to season 2009/10 Sanikidse. With this club he reached the Italian Cup final, which was lost against the dominant series champions and double winners Montepaschi Siena 2010. In the play-offs at the Italian Championship at quarter -finals in 2010 and 2011 was the last stop. 2010 came with the Georgian national team for the first time qualifying for the final round of the European basketball championship in 2011. At the tournament in Lithuania in 2011 was reached after two preliminary round wins the second round of the twelve best teams, but in the one remained winless and eliminated from the tournament. 2012 moved Sanikidse within the Serie A Series champion Montepaschi Siena, with whom he 2012/13 also plays at the highest European club level in the ULEB Euro League. Although Montepaschi could again defend his title, but after the end of the season contracts almost all players were dissolved for financial reasons. After the European Championship finals in 2013, in Georgia with Sanikidse time already eliminated in the first round, he therefore signed the end of September 2013 a contract again in the Spanish ACB league and playing time for CAI from Zaragoza.