This past off-season, Nets management pushed its “winnow” policy that motivated big-name signing, which was supposed to get the job done. But it was a “minor” acquisition that has paid some of the biggest dividends.
The signing of Andrei Kirilenko raised the eyebrows of some owners who thought that something foul was afoot in Brooklyn. The best Russian basketball player in the world coming to join the Nets and teaming up with owner Mikhail Prokhorov for only $3.18 million, considerably less than he could have made on the open market, was enough to keep the NBA rumor mill fueled for a couple weeks.
But after a brief NBA investigation into the matter, and after Kirilenko lost the majority of the first two months to nagging back spasms, no one seemed to pay much attention to this “other” offseason signing. And his return to the lineup of a 10–20 squad that had just lost its starting all-star center didn’t seem to warrant much of a reaction from fans or media.
However, since his return on Dec. 31, the Nets have rattled off a record of 10–3, with one of those losses being in his first game back at San Antonio.
You wouldn’t know it just by looking at his stat sheet, but Kirilenko has been vital in the Nets’ turnaround in 2014.
He does all the little things that garner praise from his coach and teammates, but go largely unnoticed in a box score. When he’s not pulling down the boards himself, he is able to tip balls to teammates. He gets on the floor for loose balls. He is a great passer at any position, and he has the unique ability to defend nearly every position on the floor, giving opponents fits with his length.
He brings energy and intangibles to the floor that the Nets were clearly missing through their first 30 games.
And while it is certainly preemptive to say Kirilenko is the missing piece to a championship team, if he is able to continue to get under his opponents’ skin, Brooklyn will gladly take him every day of the week.
Tom Lafe is a 6-foot-5 sports-world insider with a middling high school basketball career who believes the Nets will be driven by the success of the team’s big men.
