TTM Stats
- Sent: 2/1/2021 | Received: 3/16/2021 | 45 Days
- ’07 Fleer
- Address: Home (address from Sports Card Forum)
The Story of the Autograph
Andrei Kirilenko is a Russian former professional basketball player and current basketball executive. His overall professional career spanned from 1997 to 2015. He played in Russia for Spartak St. Petersburg and CSKA Moscow (in three stints). He also played in the NBA most famously with the Utah Jazz from 2001 to 2011 and then the Minnesota Timberwolves and Brooklyn Nets from 2012 to 2014.
Kirilenko was a star in Russia and became the youngest player ever in the Russian Super League. He won awards and championships in Russia but also with the EuroLeague. Because of his stardom over there, he looked pretty great to the NBA and the Utah Jazz made him the youngest foreign born player drafted at 18 years and 132 days old. He didn’t come over to the NBA until the 2001-02 season though.
He was a pretty good all-around player, but was especially good on defense. He was tall and lanky and could play at small forward and power forward. His NBA accomplishments include the All-Rookie First Team (2002), All-Star (2004), All-Defensive First Team (2006 – and Second team twice), and Blocks leader in 2005. But overall he was a key player for the Jazz. In 2003, John Stockton had retired and Karl Malone had gone to the Lakers, making him the de facto leader of the Jazz.
One of my favorite things about Kirilenko is his nickname, “AK-47”. The nickname works on so many levels. First, his initials are AK and he wore the number 47. Plus the weapon is from Russia so all that fits. It didn’t hurt that he could shoot pretty well too. Unfortunately these days I think it’s very odd to refer to someone with a nickname that surrounds a gun or weapon.
The Score on Andrei Kirilenko – 6.5
There’s not really much to Andrei’s signature, but it didn’t turn out too badly on this card. There’s a pretty good place for him to sign. I don’t really have that much with regard to recent basketball to get signed, so when I saw that he signed I had to try to find something in the collection to send to him and I’m glad I had something.
Thanks Mr. Kirilenko! I’m giving this return a 6.5.
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Information gathered using Wikipedia and Basketball Reference.