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Things are not going well for Ukrainians right now. Alex Len is banged and bloodied. Their national identity is fractured. And now former Utah Jazz center Kyrylo Fesenko apparently just quit, everything. In the NBA DL he played for the Canton Charge, and they just lost a key game for potential playoff seeding 110-98 to the Iowa Energy. In this game Fesenko finished with 10 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists. But he was -21 on the floor for his club, and very frustrated. Sure, I was surprised to find out that he wasn't giving enough effort (sarcasm), but when I looked it up he was averaging 14.1 / 9.1 / 2.6 / and 1.0 for Canton so far this season in 7 games.
I was all the more surprised to see this report from Gatehouse Ohio Media on the TimesReporter.com
The Iowa Energy pulled away in the fourth quarter Sunday to beat the Charge 110-98 at Wells Fargo Arena and snap Canton’s three-game winning streak.
On Saturday night, the Charge clinched a playoff spot and closed to within a half game of the Energy in the D-League standings by winning at Iowa 108-101. Less than 24 hours later, it was the Energy who had the finishing kick to gain a split in the back-to-back.
The loss ended the Charge’s slim chances at defending their Eastern Division title. Fort Wayne, up 3 1⁄2 games on Canton with only two games remaining for the Charge, is the division champion.
Canton trailed much of Sunday'’s game and went to the fourth quarter down 75-70. By the 5:39 mark of the fourth, the Energy had their lead to a game-high 19. They shot 15-of-21 from the floor (71.4 percent) in the final period.
Gilbert Brown scored 22 of his team-high 28 points in the second half for the Charge (28-20), who led just twice all game. Brown made 9 of 17 shots from the field and 4 of 9 from the arc to score his second highest total of the season.
Antoine Agudio scored 18 points, while Olek Czyz scored 16 off Canton’s bench. Charge center Kyrylo Fesenko posted team highs of eight rebounds and five assists to go with 10 points.
Fesenko was visibly upset during the game and had a number of heated exchanges with fellow players and some of the coaching staff. He also left the arena by himself and went directly to the airport. When asked for a comment Canton Charge personnel did not yet have a comment.
Yikes. So this isn't that Fesenko has called it quits. This is just that Fesenko has just quit on his team. I can only imagine that he has a lot of stress right now with the demonstrations in his homeland (where his family still lives) and the first few months of being engaged. These are excuses, of course, I'm a huge Fesenko fan.
I'm also someone who just April Fool'd you!
Fesenko didn't quit, he's a good guy, and he's finding a niche for himself in the NBA-DL. It's just that I had to make up a story, and this was the obvious one to make.