Family reunion creates comfort for Tskitishvili

By Mark Kiszla
Denver Post Sports Columnist
Tuesday, November 05, 2002 - No matter how many points he scores for the Nuggets, rookie Nikoloz Tskitishvili lives his hoop dream every night. He goes home and hears the peaceful sound of his mother and brother sleeping safely in a bed 20 feet down the hall, rather than worrying what awful fate might await his family halfway across the dangerous world.

His incredible riches as an NBA star had put his loved ones at unbearable risk and sent them scurrying into hiding in their native Republic of Georgia, where criminals eyed Tskitishvili's young brother as a prey for easy money, going so far as to issue kidnapping threats.

"I worried all day long, every day, until I saw their faces. The worries make you uptight. Your family is so far away. And I didn't ever know if they were safe until I brought them here with me," Tskitishvili says.

Here's what the box score shows from Tskitishvili's season debut in Minnesota: Three baskets, nine points, two blocks.

But here's what Skita will never forget from the night of his NBA debut: racing from the Nuggets' airline charter that touched down in Colorado way past midnight, driving fast and never stopping until he could hug his mother and brother in a way impossible for far too long.

"My mother cried," said Tskitishvili, recalling the family reunion at 3 a.m. in a Denver hotel room. "It was the best happiness."

For a 19-year-old basketball star from Europe, every commute across Denver is a magical mystery tour. What most Americans take for granted fills Tskitishvili with wonder.

"Why are those people in the street with a picture of that man?" he asks on election eve, wondering why any sane person would be standing out in the cold, waving a sign of Sen. Wayne Allard. Nelly blares from the speakers of a shiny new SUV, which repeatedly plays the lone song on the CD that this first-round draft choice knows. Tskitishvili does not understand why a recently purchased phone he plugged into the wall of his new townhouse had no number or dial tone. But as soon as Tskitishvili walks into his Cherry Creek townhouse on a Monday afternoon, he feels right at home in this strange land. Why? George Kipani, his 12-year-old brother, greets him at the front door with a smile so bright a bystander could get blinded by the hero worship. The mouth-watering aroma of his mother's cooking wafts from the kitchen stove.

Post / Helen H. Richardson

George Tskitishvili, 12-year-old brother of Nuggets rookie Nikoloz, just arrived in the United States from the Republic of Georgia. George likes to play basketball video games and always chooses his brother in the games.

No matter how it's spelled or pronounced, family is the one word that means precisely the same thing in any language.

Everybody in Denver calls the big forward Skita. "Niko!" cries Guliko Tskitishvili with delight, happy to see him back from another workday with the Nuggets. He might be 7 feet tall, but is still her baby.

How far has Tskitishvili's family traveled in a year? The 15 hours by plane it requires to go from the Republic of Georgia to the Rocky Mountains cannot begin to measure the distance. As a reserve in the Italian pro league last season, his annual salary was $30,000. Now, Tskitishvili pockets a paycheck for $210,000. Every month.

His father, a beloved dancer in Georgia who died in an auto accident when Tskitishvili was a toddler, would be proud. The anxiety that the next ring of the telephone might bring ransom information from kidnappers had added 10 years of worry lines to the face of the rookie. With the help of Colorado Congressman Scott McInnis and Nuggets official Tommy Sheppard, the daunting fences erected around this country for foreigners since Sept. 11, 2001, were hurdled, and Tskitishvili now again looks like a carefree teenager, with a reassuring normalcy back in his life.

Next to a DVD of "Silent Jay and Bob Strike Back," there are black-and-white photographs of Skita as a child scattered across the family room coffee table, treasures brought overseas by his mother. "This is me when I was 1," said Tskitishvili, pointing to an image of a baby cradling a ball. "Big bear. Even when I was little, I was a big bear."

George, who knows English well enough to enroll in middle school, already has the makings of a typical Colorado teen. He sits in front of a flat-screen TV, entranced by an NBA video game so up to date that with one adroit flick of the control pad, young George causes his big brother to rattle the rim with a thunderous dunk.

"It will be easier to play basketball now that I have family with me," Tskitishvili says. "When I come home from the games, I know the hot meals of my mom will be waiting for me."

Ward, June, Wally and the Beaver would not recognize this house Skita has bought for his family.