Before the season started, in a somewhat confusing move, the Denver Nuggets elected to waive newly acquired forward Kostas Papanikolaou. Kostas was acquired by the Nuggets in the trade that saw Ty Lawson depart the ‘Mile High’ city and head to the Houston Rockets.
After a few weeks of Kostas sitting as a free agent, the Nuggets have decided to bring back Kostas.
Following from from an official Nuggets press release.
The Denver Nuggets have signed forward Kostas Papanikolaou and waived guard Erick Green, General Manager and Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly announced today.
The Nuggets roster is littered with young guards so moving from Green and onto Kostas makes some sort of sense. Last year with the Houston Rockets, Kostas was a small part of Houston’s rotation for a while.
Although he came off the bench, Kostas appeared in 43 games, played 18.5 minutes per game, averaged 4.2 points per game, with 2.7 rebounds and 2 assists. The Greek forward has some ability to defend other, bigger players with his 6’8″, 225 pound frame and he could easily get minutes on a less than stellar Nuggets team this season. With Wilson Chandler still out for the time-being, expect Kostas to battle with Will Barton for some minutes.
