Goga Bitadze is a 6’11, 250 pound center prospect who just wrapped up an impressive season in the Adriatic Basketball Association. There has not been too much draft attention focused on Bitadze thus far, but skilled and productive big man always deserve consideration. A glance at Bitadze’s scoring production compared to some recent Adriatic Basketball center prospects paints him in a favorable light.

First, it should be noted that Bitadze is the youngest of the group. His scoring volume and efficiency are both on the lower end of this cohort, but they are not out of place, especially given his comparative youth.

Bitadze is not an impressive athlete. He is not particularly quick, and defying gravity is not his forte. He makes up for these deficiencies with soft touch and the coordination to flip shots in from the 4-6 foot area around the hoop.

(All videos in this article have more than one play so make sure you watch past the first play.)



This touch on floaters and on-the-move finishes gives Bitadze an outlet to score in pick-and-roll settings in the place of more typical lob catching. Given his size and coordination, Bitadze is also able to manufacture some points on post-ups and offensive rebound situations. He might not be a dynamic enough post fulcrum to run NBA offense through, but it is still nice to see him display the ability to score in these situations.





Bitadze’s relatively low two-point percentage is largely a product of his shot selection. He is more of a mid-range shooting threat than most big guys, and even when not shooting a jump shot he takes floaters when other bigs would dunk the ball. Unfortunately, at times this results in Bitadze not finishing in situations when most other centers would. With more vertical explosion both of these plays would be relatively easy finishes.





The path to offensive value, or at least respectability, revolves around his jump shot. As you can see, he only shot 22% from three this year in Adriatic league play. That is not great, but his high 60’s free throw shooting, comfort shooting in mid-range spots, and solid shooting in FIBA youth tournaments all are reasons for hope.

This collection of clips contains some misses and makes to give you an idea of how Bitadze’s shot looks in different situations. The one-dribble pull-up three is more of a rhythm dribble than anything, but gives a glimpse of the coordination he possesses.

Mechanically, he sometimes drops his follow through too quickly and other times seems to lean to the side. But his release is high and quick, allowing him to get his shot off over closeouts.





I wouldn’t bet on him ever turning into a high-level marksman, but given his youth and repeatable set-shot base, he seems like a good bet to at least threaten from the NBA line. Shooting bigs aren’t as rare as they once were, but having the ability to stretch a defense some still gives Bitadze some value other bigs lack.

The next part of his offensive game worth considering is his distribution. Again, let’s compare him with the other Adriatic big man prospects.

Unsurprisingly, Nikola Jokic exists in his own world here. Of everyone else, Bitadze actually has the best assist to turnover ratio, and given his lower usage role, his assist rate is solid.

As the numbers would suggest, Bitadze is a good but not great passer for a young big man. In the clips below you can see him find cutters when he has the ball above the free-throw line, and effectively kick to shooters or drop it off when he’s on the move.





Part of what I liked about Bitadze is that nearly all of his “bad” passes I saw were good reads that were simply poorly executed. In the compilation of turnovers below he is almost always seeing the right play, just faltering in his delivery. With time, he should develop into a plus passing roll man who can play smartly in dribble hand-off situations.





Overall, Bitadze’s offense is the less exciting part of his game. He’s fairly skilled and coordinated, but not elite, and his lack of explosiveness limits him in a number of ways. Most good offensive centers are either supremely skilled, or truly dynamic as dive men in pick-and-roll.

Bitadze is neither of those things, and even if his jump shot develops nicely I don’t see him being more than an average NBA offensive center. His floor on offense is pretty much nonexistent. If he struggles to adjust to the speed and athleticism of the NBA game he could very well be terrible on that end. But that is true of a number of centers. Bitadze has a reasonable chance of turning into a below-average but adequate offensive center due to his touch and burgeoning court awareness.

Defensively is where things get spicy.

Once again despite being the youngest player here, Bitadze is the second-best shot blocker of the cohort, the second-best defensive rebounder, and fits right in everywhere else. His offensive rebounding is his most “concerning” number. but he is still not too far from everyone else (other than Nurkic’s absolutely ridiculous numbers).

On tape, Bitadze is a fascinating defensive prospect. The first thing you notice about him is his sheer commitment to staying in or near the paint at all times. He does whatever he can to minimize his time venturing outside the lane, so that he is always around the rim ready to help.

This style is reminiscent of the early 2010’s Thibodeau revolution, with Roy Hibbert being the patron saint. So it is an absolutely fair question to wonder how the hell Bitadze is going to manage in the pick-and-roll, pull-up three era of today. He is surprisingly adept at containing guys when they penetrate at him. He has nimble feet in short areas that allow him to mirror guys well.





….but the rate at which he is willing to concede opponent jumpers is alarming. It’s one thing to induce a midrange pull-up, but the amount of open threes Bitadze gives up due to sagging back in pick-and-roll is a huge concern. Particularly worrisome is the idea of him trying to cover pick-and-pop’s with stretch bigs. How do you expect him to have the speed to contain a ball handler and then recover to a shooting threat?





This is undoubtedly the biggest flaw in Bitadze’s game. NBA offenses are going to stretch him and make him move around in ways that will be difficult for him to handle. Yet, before you give up on Bitadze’s chances of being an NBA player, it is worth remembering the diversity of players who can succeed in the NBA.

None of the group of other Adriatic Centers I’ve been comparing Bitadze to are particularly fleet of foot themselves. Particularly Jokic and Zubac. Rudy Gobert, a viable candidate for defensive player of the year once again, is faster than Bitadze, but legitimately struggles to contain on the perimeter. He makes up for it by shutting down the rim and leveraging his length and positioning in pick-and-roll settings.

This is where Bitadze can potentially compensate for his movement deficiencies. He is about as advanced a team defender as an 18-year-old big man can be. The below video is a collection of his rim protection clips. There are a lot of them, which is a testament to how frequently he puts himself into good help position, and they are all worth watching.

The very first clip is a good example of what makes Bitadze a dynamic rim protector despite lacking vertical explosion. He is engaged and communicating in the off-ball screen action he’s covering, but the moment he sees someone break for the rim he darts away from this off-ball “fluff” and comes up with a block. His reaction time, and his ability to be aware of when he needs to rotate to the rim are truly stellar. I included a couple clips where he gets scored on, but in all of them he does a great job positioning himself to make the opponents’ shot more difficult.





Bitadze’s plus-awareness is not confined to just challenging shots at the rim. This next set of clips shows how someone with Bitadze’s size and positioning can deter shots at the rim as well as actually contest them. Pay attention to how just one step in the direction of the ball handler in many of the clips below is enough to dissuade them from going all the way to the rim or spook them into a turnover.





One of the hardest skills to master for a big is playing the space between your man and the ball. When someone attacks the basket how do you manage to bother their drive while preventing an easy dump-off or offensive rebound finish for your own man? Tim Duncan is the classical master of this. Positioning himself perfectly and feinting just enough at the ball handler to disturb them without overcommitting.

Bitadze has a preternatural sense of how to not overcommit. He makes the occasional mistake here or there, but he is as good at this specific skill as any prospect I have ever scouted. It might not be obvious what happened in all the clips below at first glance, but I encourage you to play them multiple times if necessary to see how he expertly toes the line between bothering the ball handler and sticking to his man.





Now, the hard question is what does this composite of defensive strengths and weaknesses add up to?

Bitadze is an extraordinarily smart positional defender, with plus reactions. Of the bigs in this draft, Jaren Jackson and Jontay Porter are the only two that really compare, and Bitadze has more traditional center size than either of them.

That being said, Bitadze’s perimeter quickness is about as bad as it gets, and that just might be a death knell in the “modern NBA.” I really don’t know the answer. Bitadze is truly gifted as a positional defender. I would find it entirely believable if he turned himself into a plus defensive center. Someone like Marcin Gortat who protects the rim and does well on the glass. But I also would not be shocked if he simply can’t stay on the floor when he gets stretched out in NBA pick-and-rolls.

As is always the case, the most likely answer is he settles somewhere in-between. He can be highly effective in certain matchups and limited minutes, but not for more than 10-15 minutes per game. Taken in conjunction with his decent but uninspiring offensive profile, I have Bitadze 36th on my latest big board update.

Backup centers are one of the least valuable commodities in the NBA these days. A player of Bitadze’s archetype may not be worth drafting till late in the second round. I am open to this argument, but Bitadze’s impressive production and rare flashes as a team defender make me believe in him a little higher. Anyone drafted in the 25-40 range is an unlikely bet to turn into a useful NBA player, but Bitadze at least has some real forseeable paths to doing so.