Utah Jazz: Counting down the team’s Top 15 all-time draft picks
By Ryan Aston
Forward. CSKA Moscow - Russia, 1999 (No. 24 overall). Andrei Kirilenko. 6. player. 118.
At this point in time, the NBA is a truly global league, flush with talent from every corner of the globe. That wasn’t the case back in the summer of ’99, however. Back then, you could really only point to a handful of guys — players like Dikembe Mutombo, Hakeem Olajuwon, Arvydas Sabonis, and Detlef Schrempf — as legit foreign-born stars.
So, the Jazz’s decision to draft a Russian teenager named Andrei Kirilenko with the 24th pick in the ’99 draft didn’t exactly set the hoops world ablaze. Nevertheless, when Kirilenko finally debuted for the Jazz in 2001, it quickly became apparent that AK-47 was as deadly as his moniker suggested on the court.
In short order, AK established himself as one of the NBA’s elite defenders and most versatile frontcourt playmakers. Over the course of a decade in a Jazz uniform, he averaged 12 points, six rebounds, nearly three assists, two blocks, and 1.4 steals per game.
How’s that for stuffing a stat sheet? When people called him the master of the 5×5, they weren’t kidding.
Kirilenko also played in an All-Star Game (and was voted in over Carmelo Anthony by West coaches, no less) and was a three-time All-Defensive team selection. As great as he was, though, AK was also ahead of his time.
In the modern NBA, he’d be like a prime-level Draymond Green…or better. Seriously.
Next: No. 5