My chat with Kyrylo Fesenko!

I’ve just come (several days ago, actually!) from an enlightening conversation with fabled Jazz big man Kyrylo Fesenko, and boy was he ever a treat! During our 6-hour marathon chat sesh, Fes dished about the Nuggets series, the upcoming matchup with the Lakers, some of his favorite indie fro-yo joints in Salt Lake County, and his personal picks for the top-50 best ABBA songs of the decade!

Unfortunately, since I’ve only been alloted about 1000 words by my hard-nosed editor, roughly 98% of our exchange had to be totally scrapped—and my exhaustive and colorful notes ceremonially soiled and burned—per established journalistic bylaws. (Those bureaucrat rascals!) I also regret that our talk was not caught on film, as much of Fesenko’s energy can really only be captured through visual means. But all of you Fes-heads can rest assured that the big fella was on his "game" throughout: within the first 35 minutes of speaking to me, Kyrylo had already managed to impregnate 8 passing females telekinetically, perform 4 legitimate David Blaine-style magic tricks without provocation, and repeatedly shapeshift into a variety of mythical creatures, including (but not limited to) a dragon pixie.

Let’s take a look at a small snippet of what transpired.

via www3.pictures.zimbio.com

Savvy Veteran: Kyrylo, it’s really great to talk to you today.

Kyrylo Fesenko: Yes, should be fun.

SV: I want to start off with the first round. It was a tough, hard-fought series with the Nuggets, and you certainly had your hands full defending Denver’s bigs for six games. [laughs] I bet it’ll be nice to get a break going into the next round, playing against a Laker team with such little talent and length down low, amirite?

KF: Well… Umm,  er—was that like, opposite?

SV: That was… that was a joke. I guess my "American irony" didn’t quite translate to a foreign audience. [nervous laughter]

KF: In Ukraine, we usually do the "dry clean."

SV: …wait, wh-what?

KF: It was, like, laundry joke—after your "American ironing."

SV: Oh, man. That’s brilliant! Well played, sir.

KF: [crosses legs, leans forward] No, but in all seriousness, I did recognize the sarcasm of your initial comment, and between me and you, I thought it was perfectly executed and a deliciously humorous contrast.

SV: Well, thank you very much.

KF: Pleasure to me. Would you like to hear joke?

SV: Absolutely!

KF: What happens when Jazz big men press star-six-nine on cell phones?

SV: What?

KF: Nothing, they don’t get calls!

SV: Oh ho ho, you are just too much! You mean like officiating, right?

KF: Yes, the referee. Like "calls." [pantomimes the blowing of a whistle]

SV: Oh, my! I get it!

KF: I’m going to tell it during comedy roast at team banquet.

SV: Fes, that joke will kill. I mean that.

KF: It will.

***

SV: Kyrylo, throughout the first round, Jazz fans have come to admire your play for its defensive benefits, and have also even started to appreciate you for your role in the offense. You seem to alter the spacing on the court with your big body, and few things get a Jazz fan more excited than a Fesenko hammer dunk. Give us a little insight into your offensive mindset.

KF: Basically, I just try to go out there, and dunk [bleep] out of ball.

SV: …You… just try to dunk the [bleep] out of the ball every time?

KF: Well, yes and no; it depends where I am on court. If I’m down low, like, I’ll just dunk [bleep] out of ball, but if I’m at top of key, I’ll try to get nervous and throw bad pass to someone else to disrupt offense’s rhythm.

SV: You’ve been doing that on purpose?

KF: Sure, sure. I’m still learning system, but I’ve got that down.

SV: If I may play devil’s advocate here, Fes, the Lakers have some pretty good defensive players with a lot of height, and it might be hard for you to get a dunk on every single possession. Do you have any strategies you might be able to use in the very likely event that you may have an opportunity to shoot, but perhaps not dunk, the ball?

KF: Of course, that’s easy. As I see, there’s basically, like, two schools of thought in the basketball: hurling ball very fast at rim, and choosing a random place on backboard to hurl ball off of, also very fast. My time in D-League has taught me much about employing the methods.

SV: So you scored a lot in the D-Leauge using those two techniques?

KF: No, mostly I just dunked [bleep] out of ball.

SV: Sure, sure. That’s interesting. It’s funny—so many players in the league that I interview keep trotting out the ancient, lame, unoriginal shtick of "putting a little arc on the ball," or "using common sense to determine the proper angle at which a basketball, if bounced off of a backboard, would subsequently fall into a rim—y’know, because it’s really pretty easy when you’re only like 2 feet away from the basket and like seven feet-tall," but your methods sound a lot more clumsy and erratic, which I really like.

KF: You should see my theories about shooting the free throw! Coach thinks I’m crazy!

***

SV: Kyrylo, one last question for you: I am yellow and blue, I’m not dead (but I’m definitely not alive!), and, even though I live in the attic, I sleep with the fishes every night. What am I?

KF: I don’t know. Tell me the answer.

SV: I can’t, Fes. That’s for you to figure out on your own. And everyone is counting on you.

KF: Oh, man—riddles drive me crazy! I’m going to play so bad until I figure this out!