The road to Eurobasket2021: Stephania, Turashvili, Vashakidze, Baramidze

We continue telling stories about Georgian National Team members, who brought joy to the Georgian fans in the 90’s. This time we will tell you about Vladimer Stephania, Mamuka Turashvili, Irakli Vashakidze and Kakha Baramidze.

The Road of Georgian Basketball until Eurobasket2021

From Georgia to the NBA

Vladimer Stephania

Vladimer Stephania is the first Georgian to play in the American National Basketball Association. He was selected by the Seattle Supersonics as No. 27 on the 1998 draft. Since then he has not played for Georgia. Vova had a chance to return in 2004, though he had just moved to Portland and…

• I’m 80 percent ready. I will definitely be attending the national team by September 1, – said Stephania in the summer of 2004.

Just a month later, his team, Portland, sent a fax to Georgia: “if Vladimer was healthy, we would consider the federation’s request, but there is no insurance on the newly operated knees. We cannot release him without insurance.”

By the way, two years after Vova arrived in Tbilisi, he shook his head:

– In 2004, I had to terminate my contract with Portland prematurely anyway, I wish I arrived then.

Stephania has played a number of effective matches for the national team. The one with Slovakia was distinctive however. Stephania scored 14/14 two-pointers there. He had 29 points, 15 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals in 20 minutes.

The match against Slovakia was held in October. Back then I was protecting the dignity of Slovenian “Slovan” and had a good experience with the team. When I joined the Georgian national team I was in a proper shape, which also appeared during the match. I was good at offense and scored 29 points. As we say, we lost a won game: we were ahead until the last minute. But the referee gave us a technical foul in the final part, then the fight broke out and when everything was calm, our opponents shot 6 free-throws in a row…

Mamuka Turashvili

Two years after the Slovakian match, in 1997 the Georgian national team held a match in Cyprus that the team members still remember emotionally. This was EuroBasket 1999 qualifying match against Austria, in case of victory Georgians would advance to the semifinals.

• Few seconds were left before the final siren, Austria was winning 56:54. Georgians had a final attack, we moved the ball quickly to another half of the court, our guard Mamuka Turashvili crossed three-point line and shot – 56:56 – The final siren sounded. The match went to overtime, and we won convincingly there, – David Tortladze recalled.

Let’s listen to Mamuka Turashvili himself now:

– It’s interesting to remember, Cyprus, the last and decisive group game against Austria. Our opponent had a Serbian coach and four Serbian players. They were pretty rough. Serbians broke Sanadze and Karabak. Nevertheless, we took the match to Overtime at the last second. Vladimer Stephania was on the team with an injury. We asked him to play in overtime. Vova played and we won 67:60. We should not forget Vakhtang Natsvlishvili’s contribution as well…

Vato played 45 minutes, collected 22 points and 15 rebounds. As for Vako Bezhanishvili, he scored 3 three-pointers in a row exactly when we were losing by 8 points.

After finishing his career Mamuka Turashvili started coaching. Currently he is working for Dinamo Tbilisi and is the head coach of Georgian U16 team.

Irakli Vashakidze

Irakli Vashakidze was another talented basketball player from Kutaisi. He also played in the USSR Championship in Dinamo Tbilisi and when the Georgian national team was formed, the coach Besik Liparteliani invited him for the very first qualifying round.

Irakli was that kind of player, he could mobilize especially at a critical moment. Even a Birmingham qualifierს can prove this. You probably remember that Georgian team lost with England and Poland, defeated Wales and Luxembourg and met Denmark for the ticket of the next round. Whichever team won, it would play in the semi-finals.

This was Irakli Vashakidze’s best match in the Georgian national team. He scored 13 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals in 16 minutes. It’s interesting, that he stood on a free-throw line 14 times, made it successfully 9 times and scored 2/2 two-pointers then.

Irakli Vashakidze passed away in 2000.

Kakha Baramidze

Kakha Baramidze has played only two matches for the Georgian national team, though he was a promising youngster. Was a member of the USSR juniors team. Won 1990 USSR Spartakiada and was named the best points forward of the tournament.

Kakha was a relative of another member of the Georgian national team, Irakli Baqradze. So their uncle also played a big role in little Nikusha and Gegi’s interest in basketball. Today, Irakli’s son Gegi is a candidate for the Georgian national team.

Kakha Baramidze played 17 minutes for the Georgian national team in an exact match that we have already mentioned – in Slovakia, when they won with six fouls in the last seconds. Kakha scored 4 points in this match.

He died on July 1, 2001.

Next week, we will tell you about Kakha Shengelia, Davit Ustiashvili, Irakli Japharidze and Levan Qarabak.