Here on Brooklyn Balling, I’ll try to recap the chaos that was the 2013-14 Nets season with a series of “Season Review” posts on the players, trades, and even coach that shaped how this year turned out. Kevin Garnett was last, and Andrei Kirilenko is up next.
The Nets, amid reports of possible salary manipulation, somehow signed Andrei Kirilenko–countryman of Mikhail Prokhorov–for just $3.18 million this July. The deal came a year after he made nearly $10 million on a one-year contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Of course, for that bargain price, the jokes about Prokhorov giving AK some under-the-table money to sweeten the deal were made in plenty.
In all seriousness, though, Kirilenko was probably drawn to Brooklyn for a bunch of reasons, such as playing with his former Jazz point guard, working for fellow Russian national Prokhorov, and having a chance to win his first NBA championship. Although that last goal ended up not panning out exactly as AK and the Nets would have hoped, he does have a player option in his contract for the 2014-15 season that, probably, he will exercise.
Brooklyn certainly didn’t bring Kirilenko in for his scoring prowess, as his defense and overall presence on the court matters much more. However, like Kevin Garnett, he saw a big decrease in minutes (19 per game) from the previous season and put up career-low points numbers (a measly five per contest). Prior to this season, Andrei had only averaged less than 10 points per game in one season, the 2006-07 campaign with the Jazz.
However, as lacking as his offensive contribution to the Nets was, his defensive one was through the roof as no other Nets player in recent memory caused as much havoc to opponents’ offenses as he did. AK hustled for every minute he played in every game, and was always deflecting passes, stealing loose balls, and even blocking shots on occasion.
He didn’t lead the league in any particular category, but you could tell that when Kirilenko was on the floor for the Nets–in both the regular season and the postseason–Brooklyn’s defensive intensity picked up and scoring by the other team slacked off. His lanky 6-9 frame makes passing very difficult and all makes all aspects of offense hard as he is able to significantly improve any part of the the Nets defensive effort.
He’s not the athlete he used to be–being 33 might do that to most NBAers–and doesn’t score as much, but it doesn’t appear that AK’s defense has been compromised at all. He should be back with the Nets for the 2014-15 season, with his player option and all, and probably will be a big factor–especially in the playoffs–in how well Brooklyn does in it’s second season under Jason Kidd.
Overall, signing him was a great move by Billy King and another shrewd one for not a ton of money/risk involved.
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