seriously you get paid millions of dollars and you cry cause you can't play well? Man up and PLAY BETTER.
Let Utah buy him out. We can then get him for virtually free and rehab him. He could sub for Battier on defense. He is obviously a head case, but he is a good one. PS I've had a tough day at work so on second thought I will not delete the above. I wish the best for Kirlenko. Hope he comes back if that is best for him.
Blazer ben and I rarely agree. So sorry. Previous post deleted. On second thought. Not deleted. Best wishes for him and his family. Screw the playoff series if it would help the guy. It is only entertainment.
Hard to trade AK when he's crying like Adam Morrison! In retrospect, Adam was crying for free, AK has 12.3 million reasons not to cry!
Crying because your whole season's of work/college career/team-era is done (Fisher/Morrison/Tmac/Shaq....) etc is one thing. Heck, maybe Dirk and theMavs would have been better off with a good cry after game 6 last year. But breaking down and crying in practice before game 2 of your teams 1st playoff series because you feel you havn't played enough is another matter. I am sorry but I don't see how Sloan and the rest of the Jazz can count on AK, the NBA is a brutal game requiring physical gifts, confidence and mental focus--and this is great for the Rockets. The Jazz needed to overcome the superstar gap through great chemistry, focus and teamwork. I don't see it. And as we havn't won a series in how long?-- we can and should be ready to obliterate that team.
so i guess you and blazer ben want ak to drop 50 on us tonight so he'd feel better right? i mean he is a humanbeing isnt he?
I didn't read past the first post or two. I thought he had a nervous break down and was disabled. If not, then I hope he goes for 50, if it would cure him, and then we win. He can go for 50 each game as long as we win. I guess it mighti increase their chances next year.
Link to article Monson: Forward frustrated by reduced role By Gordon Monson Tribune Columnist Article Launched: 04/23/2007 01:13:51 AM MDT Jazz: A sullen Kirilenko decries his playoff minutesJazz: Miller watches his club with intensityKragthorpe: Jazz will need short memories for Game 2Jazz-Rockets notes: Houston shooters lick chopsNBA PLAYOFFS: Yao Restaurant and Bar a big hit in HoustonMonson Blog: Team reacts to KirilenkoYao forces Jazz to rely on outside shotsApr 22: Jazz notes: Dirty defense allegedMONSON: Jazz get crash course in intensityMcGrady won't let Rockets loseKRAGTHORPE: Cold shooting dooms UtahJazz have failure to launchJazz: Yao smothers Utah's front lineJazz: Chasing a distant goalJazz: By the numbersJAZZ: Boozer struggles, Williams OK in playoff debutJazz: Playoff wrap upJazz notesJazz: McGrady calms himself, then panics Jazz defenseJazz: Fisher's missed layup signals turning of tideRockets: Coach gets angle correctJazz: Second-half woes break down Jazz top scorersThe Days of Our Lives organ music played loudly here Sunday as two major actors in a still festering and now escalating soap opera drowned out just about everything else at Jazz practice, between playoff games 1 and 2. You want daytime drama? The Jazz have it, so much so that the series' next few episodes could be season-enders, and maybe even era-enders. Sue Ellen, who's now married to Bill, isn't pregnant with another man's child, and her ex-husband, Armando, who cluelessly is not really the father of the former couple's two children - it's really Johnny the pool boy - is not plotting to re-enter her life. It's much worse than that. Andrei Kirilenko is ticked off and, yet, sad enough to have broken down and cried courtside - no lie - after practice, and Jerry Sloan is stubborn as an old plow horse, and, yet, full of self-doubt. What a ridiculous predicament for the Jazz to find themselves in at such an important moment for their rebuilding franchise. Let's begin with Andrei, a max player who has expressed his frustrations off and on all season about his limited offensive role. After Game 1 against the Rockets on Saturday night, an 84-75 loss, in which Kirilenko played less than 16 minutes, and only seven seconds over the game's final 17 minutes, he could no longer hold back his strong feelings. He vented to a gang of reporters, allowing his emotions to show, telling them he was baffled by the situation and frustrated, too. Later, in a solitary, quiet moment in a corner of the gym, he throttled up his comments as his emotions spilled over in tandem with the backed-up plumbing in his eyes. "I thought things would change in the playoffs," he said. "I can't control it. I am not the coach. I don't want to be coach. It's not my responsibility for that. He decides who plays. I am ready to play. This is confusing to me. It's just that since the beginning of the season . . . I don't know what's wrong. I'm wondering. I talked to [Sloan] at the middle of the season. He said his points. I said my points. "His point was that Andrei needs to play hard and play defense. "My point was I want to get more involved in the offense. I'm not asking for 20 shots a game. Just be involved." Kirilenko said he was and is being misused to the Jazz's disadvantage. "For some reason they position me as a jump-shooter. That is not what I am. When I was All-Star, I wasn't a jump-shooter. I'm not just defensive player. You can't just go and play defense. You have to play offense. It's both ways. You're going both ways. On court, I can't take control." Asked if he wanted to be a complete player, Kirilenko said with emphasis: "I am complete player." Asked whether Sloan's usage of him had taken its toll on his confidence, stripping him down and leaving him broken, he answered: "I have no confidence. None. No. Hell, no." And, then, he added an ominous, if cryptic, postscript that, interpreted a certain way, casts doubt on Kirilenko's future with the Jazz: "We'll wait to see how it goes to the end of the playoff." That joyless statement was underscored with both anger and more tears in his eyes. He paused for a full 10 seconds to gather himself. "I want to play," he said. "I want to be on the court." Meanwhile, in another corner of the Toyota Center, Sloan responded with explanations for the way he utilized Kirilenko against the Rockets, mixed with an unusual brew of defiance and perhaps disingenuous - perhaps not - self-accusation and loathing for not finding a better way to motivate and take advantage of having a player with such an array of unique, if limited, talents "It's frustrating as the devil for me," he said. "What am I supposed to do, play him 40 minutes a night and not care about winning? Teams figure players out. In the game [Saturday] night, Andrei struggled. [The Rockets] dropped off him, and made it difficult for him to pass the ball. They weren't guarding him. You've got to be able to shoot it." Instead, through much of the second half, Sloan went with players he thought were more capable of scoring. "We were behind," he said. "I felt like we had to score. I went with another guy. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Andrei would have given us some baskets." That's Sloan's way of saying there was no chance in hell. It is curious, though, that a coach who has said for so long that the Jazz's better offensive moments come by way of strong defense would leave his best defender on the bench, particularly as Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming tortured the Jazz. Either way, Sloan continued to speak to Kirilenko's complaints: "I think he wants to post up down low. And he wants to handle the basketball more. But it's difficult to play him at 4. I have [Carlos] Boozer and [Paul] Millsap there. He thinks he's not getting shots, but there are shots for him. We don't run any plays for Paul. He gets shots. All I want is for him to play basketball. Basketball is basketball. You have to work hard and work on your body. I can't do that for him. Guys knock Andrei around a little bit. "Evidently, I'm not getting the ball to him on the court and he's not happy. I don't feel good about the situation. I'd like to see him succeed as much as anyone. We need him. I have to get him to play better, but I haven't been able to do that. We encourage him to get better at shooting. I've never told him not to shoot. "I've done, apparently, a bad job with him. I'm here to try to win. I'm not going to make 12 people happy. I know that. But I've never experienced something like this before. I'm confused as to how to do it. I know he's frustrated. But I want to win." It's more organ music than anyone on the Jazz can handle. Especially at such a critical juncture - one game into a tough first-round playoff series against a strong opponent that will be used as a barometer for measuring the dimensions of the Jazz's entire rebuilding project. If As Andrei's World Turns spins out of control and helps knock the Jazz out of the playoffs, there will be blame to spread in two directions. Sloan and Kirilenko both should have had this deal smoothed by now. It has alternately simmered and boiled over for an extended period, for too long, and everybody was fully aware. It should have been properly addressed and handled before now. Sloan was too stubborn to move off his spot, and so was Kirilenko, all to the detriment of a club that desperately needs each of them to make any headway here and now. Instead, Kirilenko sits courtside and weeps. Sloan stands across the gym and wonders. And neither wins. --- Wow - So Sloan is unable to fully utilize his players strengths.......and the player gets frustrated....it was like reading the V-Span thing all over again....a player being asked to do something that they are not good at, and it is not their strength. I think both Sloan and JVG suffer from this, it is their way or nothing, and this is where coaches like Avery and Popovich are superior, they adjust their systems to utilize other abilities....(and yes I know they both lost their opening games). Wow - Just wow. DD
All AK needs to realize is that he needs Yao to be his friend. So, restructure that contract and get traded to the Rox for next season. All is well.
from Sloan to JVG.. hmm.. if we think he had mental probs in Utah.. I can't imagine AK playing for JVG. He would have all the open shots he wants with yao and tmac drawing double teams.
Wow I think AK-47 plays more video games than Yao. http://www.kirilenko.ru/?lang=eng&chapter=andrey&subchapter=hobbies Computer Games They are capable of absorbing me completely. I can play a lot and for a long time. It even happens that I forget about sleep and food. Sometimes I even set an alarm clock to remind me to stop. My favorite games: Diablo, various simulators of city and park constructions and strategy. For example, Age of Empire, Warcraft, Starcraft, Heroes of Might and Magic. http://www.kirilenko.ru/?lang=eng&chapter=andrey&subchapter=masha The only shortcoming of my husband is that he loves his computer. He can sit at the computer days in and days out, and sometimes it scares me. We had at one time settled a contract: if he didn’t use the computer I promised not to drink my red wine. Andrei does not drink at all, not even a drop, and he does not know how enjoyable it can be. He believes alcohol is harmful in any quantities. Now we found a consensus: he plays with his computer a little, and I drink a glass of red wine at dinner.
