Andrei Kirilenko in Sports Illustrated today

by Basketball John on Nov 26, 2008 8:33 AM MST Comment 8 comments

Sports Illustrated has an article on Andrei Kirilenko that will run tomorrow today both in print and online. Once I have the link, I'll get it up. in the meantime, here are some excerpts,

UPDATE: Here's the link to the full article

On his relationship with Sloan,

"It's not that I don't like Jerry," says Andrei. "He's a good person. He's just from an older generation that treats players like kids. Let's say your boss comes to you and says, 'Hey, son. Come here'. And you look at him like, What did you call me? It doesn't hurt your feelings, but it doesn't feel comfortable."

On his breakdown in the 2007 playoffs,

Rock bottom came during the first round of the playoffs. After sitting on the bench for the final 17 minutes of Utah's Game 1 loss to the Rockets, Kirilenko began sobbing as he talked to the press at practice the next day. "I have no confidence," he told reporters. "None." A horrified Masha could barely watch. The following morning she flew to Houston and found her husband alone in his hotel room, inconsolable. "The thing that you have to realize about Andrei," says Masha, "is that he is impossible to get upset. I can't do it. So when I saw him like that, I knew something was seriously wrong."

And you can tell who wears the pants,

Relaxing at the Kirilenkos' spacious, modern Salt Lake City home, Masha's eyes grow wide when told that Sloan didn't care whether his players liked him.

"Does he care whether their wives like him?" she says.

Andrei turns and mutters something to her in Russian.

"He doesn't like me to talk about that," says Masha.

A lot of it we've already heard and some of it we've heard over and over again. But there's good stuff in there. My favorite part is the last paragraph,

For now, life is a sweet dream. Really. Sure, he's a little more jaded-"It's hard to totally forget all the stuff that happened," he says-but he's usually wearing the grin that Masha fell in love with nine years ago. "I've seen Andrei happier two times," says Masha. "When he made the All-Star team and on our honeymoon. He just wants to help his team. That's the only thing that matters to him."

I'd like to ask him why his honeymoon was one of his favorite times.

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is it just me or...

i remember seeing the “breakdown” in houston and if memory serves me correctly, andrei merely teared up a little rather than “sobbed”?

also, i hope that SI was trying to create or stir up ak-jerry drama because if things are portrayed accurately that can’t be good for team chemistry.

by moni on Nov 26, 2008 1:04 AM MST reply actions

I think that all the guys on the team are okay with each other — that’s the big thing. some guys clearly drink the jerry sloan kool-aid and are very loyal to him. other players are loyal to their teammates. other players are still loyal to the organization. my speculation is that you have “jerry guys” like harpring, team first guys like boozer and organization guys like AK all working together.

I can clearly see that guys could be upset with their roles — it’s their jobs / their livelihoods / love that they are talking about. sloan vs. _______ (insert player here) conflict is bound to happen. it’s the essense of sociological conflict theory between management and workers.

the drama between sloan and any player is probably a lot different than what the media reports. (this can mean that it’s either worse than reported, or better than reported . . . everyone talks about Karl and Stock loving Jerry, they were good soldiers, but that’s not to say that karl never got tired of Jerry’s ways — which he did as the seasons went on. this was under-reported, but documented.)

by AllThatJazzBasketball on Nov 26, 2008 11:42 AM MST up reply actions