The 30 most painful NBA Draft pass-ups since 2000

NBA Draft Mistake #18: Denver drafting Nikoloz Tskitishvili over Amare Stoudemire.

Nikoloz Tskitishvili has become something of a meme for NBA draft buffs as a random high lottery pick that failed in spectacular fashion. He spent his first three seasons with the Denver Nuggets and immediately fell short of expectations. In his first season, he served as a backup center but was unproductive in that role, averaging just 3.9 points and 2.2 rebounds per game.

In his second and third years with Denver, he seldom played and continued to fail to make a noticeable impact despite being 7’0 tall. He was later traded to the Golden State Warriors, where he continued to underwhelm before his NBA career began to unwind. In total, he appeared in 143 games as a Nugget, averaging 3.8 points on an awful 30% shooting from the field as well as pulling down 1.9 boards per game.

Tskitishvili clearly didn’t pan out for Denver, and they passed up on five-time all-star Amar’e Stoudemire, who was taken ninth. The Nuggets would surely like to have that one back, especially since their failure to get any value out of the fifth pick affected their ability to build around Carmelo Anthony.