With future Hall of Fame international breakouts like Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol making a splash in the league by 2002, the Denver Nuggets were looking to add some prospects from abroad, too.
So Denver used the Nos. 5 and 7 picks on Georgian combo forward Nikoloz Tskitishvili and center Nene, respectively.
Although Tskitishvili ultimately failed to make much of an NBA impact, he didn't let that deter him from playing basketball.
From lottery disappointment to hoops lifer
In fact, he's still playing in leagues right now, as a 42-year-old — albeit, in an amateur capacity, as Chris Tomasson of The Denver Gazette reveals.
Denver Gazette travels to Tblishi, Georgia to meet ex-#Nuggets F Nikoloz Tskitishvili. He's still playing at 42, having been in recent Swiss masters event. Talks of difficult time with Nuggets after being No. 5 pick. Jeff Bzdelik, Kiki VanDeWeghe weigh in:https://t.co/qQSz3b2sns
— Chris Tomasson (@christomasson) September 24, 2025
During his 2002-03 rookie season, the 7-footer was given a meaningful bench role, but failed to impress much. Across 81 games (16 starts), the then-19-year-old averaged 3.9 points on .293/.243/.738 shooting splits, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.1 assists in 16.3 minutes per.
“I didn’t know anything about the (NBA) draft,’’ Tskitishvili said. “Then Marc Fleisher (Tskitishvili’s agent) is telling me I could be a top-10 pick. … And then people were writing articles on me that I could be like Nowitzki or Gasol and I’m just an 18-year-old kid. … I knew I was a very good, talented guy but I never talked about myself like I’m the best.”
Denver's priorities shifted the next year, when the team selected its own (U.S.-based) future Hall of Famer, combo forward Carmelo Anthony, with the third pick. The Nuggets also signed free agent Andre Miller. These two new additions helped drag the club out of the lottery. Tskitishvili fell out of the rotation, averaging just 7.9 minutes in 39 games.
“My first year they gave me some chances and I had some decent games,’’ Tskitishvili said. “But in the second year, [then-first-year head coach] Jeff Bzdelik had to win. I remember he called me into his office and said, ‘Skita, if something happens, they will fire me and I really want this job. You are very young and you have to develop but if you don’t play, don’t get mad at me.’’
MORE NEWS: ESPN experts think Nuggets' Nikola Jokic will win fourth MVP this year
In a separate conversation, Bzdelik acknowledged that he hadn't felt Tskitishvili was ready for primetime that season.
“Skita was a terrific young man,’’ Bzdelik said. “When the Nuggets drafted him fifth, I had nothing to do with the draft choices. When they drafted him fifth, it was really unfair to him because he wasn’t a fifth-player-picked kind of guy... When he was drafted, it put everyone in a very, very difficult spot because he wasn’t ready and he was drafted strictly on potential... We were trying to win games, and he wasn’t ready for that moment.”
He demanded a trade out of town the next season, and was ultimately dealt to the Golden State Warriors. Tskitishvili spent his final NBA season, 2005-06, with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns.
All told, he averaged 2.9 points on .304/.235/.730 shooting splits, 1.8 rebounds, and 0.7 assists across 172 NBA games during his four seasons in the world's most competitive basketball league.
He opted to move on to other opportunities after Phoenix.
When his NBA run was over, Tskitishvili suited up for pro teams in Spain, Italy, Greece, Iran, Slovenia, Lebanon, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, his native Georgia, and China through 2019 — he also enjoyed a brief flirtation with the L.A. Clippers, signing on with the team in 2015. The team cut him before the regular season. He played for Ice Cube's Big 3 three-on-three tournament. All told, he's suited up for 25 clubs in 12 countries, per Tomasson.
Tskitishvili may not have been an NBA success story, but he's hesitant to accept the "bust" label. After all, he did go on to enjoy an extended career abroad.
“I don’t call myself a bust because you were expecting a 19-year-old kid to come out there to dominate,’’ Tskitishvili said. “I blame myself in that I should have done better. But I didn’t have much knowledge back then. I didn’t know about hiring a coach to work with me extra hours in the gym or somebody to guide me off the court. … If you draft somebody No. 5 from Europe, you have to raise him like a child. It was like coming from a different planet.”
“I look back at the four years in the NBA as frozen years of my career like I’m in shock because I’m not getting better,’’ Tskitishvili said. “But expectations were so high at being the fifth pick that I couldn’t reach them. If I was the No. 30 or 50 pick, maybe I could have played for 13 or 14 years and scored like 5 or 6 points a game and people wouldn’t have been expecting more.”
More recently, Tskitishvilli suited up in the over-40 division for Georgia during the 2024 World Maxibasketball Championship in Lugano, Switzerland. At present, he's playing with a masters league in Tbilisi, Georgia.
“I might hold the record for playing for so many teams,’’ Tskitishvili said. “I might go into the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“I’m going to play until my wheels come off,’’ Tskitishvili, now a married father of three, remarked. “I love playing basketball. When it’s something you’ve been doing for 20-plus years, you just can’t stop.”
MORE NEWS: Ex-Nuggets wing shares details about trade to the Brooklyn Nets