Right now, the Utah Jazz and its fans have focused much more public attention on its disgruntled star than the upcoming draft or its success this past season. Even worse than the large, long contract and mediocre statistics, Andrei Kirilenko still doesn’t accept that the team won’t be utilizing him offensively.

His recent interview with the Russian site Sports Express, showed that fans should be most disappointed with Kirilenko’s selfish attitude. Although team owner Larry Miller and GM Kevin O’Connor believe that they can talk with Kirilenko and solve the problem, the only real answer is to trade him.

This blog post will outline some of the comments made in the interview, as well as looking at why the team should look to unload him.
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I want to make one thing clear – I am not at all sure that the Jazz should trade Andrei Kirilenko. I think he is an incredible talent and the Jazz and Jazz fans have been lucky to have him around for the last six seasons. Watching him swat shots for another team would be a real pity. But sometimes the truth hurts and it looks like the Jazz and AK are each best served with a trade.

So, in that light, I wonder what the best possible trade scenario would be. I believe there are several great possibilities out there for the Jazz to make a real splash, but the trading partners are limited. I do not believe that the Jazz can get Garnett, or Kobe for that matter, with a combination of AK and Memo. They just don’t have the star appeal necessary to make the new teams forget their stars. I believe that at least two if not all of the following are required to generate interest in the Russian Rifle:
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Well, the season went better than many expected, I believe. While few predicted that the Jazz would advance to the Conference finals, I think that fans and experts alike were down on the Jazz after their poor finish heading into the first round against the Houston Rockets. Nevertheless, here are my season grades for each player. Feel free to leave your own feedback.
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I love the AK-47. He is one of the most diverse talents in the league and is certainly one of the most exciting to watch. But alas, all good things come to an end and after enduring a season trapped playing out of position and generally struggling on the floor, Kirilenko appears to be ready to move on and move out.

It is really a shame.

But it is time to move on. There will be Jazz fans that will turn on AK, but it is not his fault. As much as I love coach Sloan, he is culpable in the downfall of Andrei Kirilenko. I have spoken of this many times, but Sloan became less and less trusting of AK, both offensively and defensively, and this season never put him in a position where he could truly display his full skill set.

As I have said before, if you have ever played basketball, pickup or otherwise, and you were never passed the ball, you know that things get very boring in a hurry. Most of us can relate to that. This is essentially what happened to AK. Sloan never ran plays for him and surprisingly, it looks like even Deron Williams bought into gig. AK was the odd man out.

Now we all want him to be professional and just cover his role… but this is not what AK was signed to do. He was signed as a max money player and under that pretence, he is supposed to be the man. That is the way AK views himself. He believes he is capable, at least in some capacity, of carrying the Jazz both offensively and defensively. He is clearly limited in his skill set offensively, but he did average 18 points over the course of a season; a total 10 points per game higher than his scoring average this season.

I for one agree with AK. I believe his beef was legitimate. He should have never taken his disagreements public, but he had a right to complain. And now it looks like he is going to be traded.

It will be sad to see him go, but it certainly makes for a very interesting offseason. Here’s to an exciting summer.