Rowan Kavner
IRVINE, Calif - Nikoloz Tskitishvili just wanted to play basketball.
Ironically, for the 2002 No. 5 overall draft pick to do that, he’d have to leave the NBA.
“You’ve got to play basketball if you love the game,” Tskitishvili said. “As much as I enjoyed being in the NBA, the basketball stuff didn’t click in a lot of ways…I sat down with my family, we talked with Mike D’Antoni, who was my coach, and we talked about this. I talked and said, ‘I think it’s time for me to go and develop myself.