Andrey Kirilenko: I’ve stolen one of my trophies

Are you are going to continue your career in Europe? (ivan____)

It’s mostly out of my hands and depends on the teams that would like to have me in their squad and are ready to make an offer. I wouldn’t like to lose my shape if the lockout lasts for a long time. Now I feel well, by the time the European championship starts we will be at our peak – and it would be embarrassing to stop playing right afterwards. Even if you train constantly, it’s not the same thing. Where will I play? Most likely, in Russia. I’m only interested in two teams: CSKA Moscow and Spartak St. Petersburg. I’m highly respectful of all the others, but I began my career at Spartak and played for CSKA, so it will be logical if I play for them.

How can Spartak St. Petersburg attract Andrey Kirilenko? They won’t even play in the EuroLeague.

I don’t care about the European cups at all; it’s my native team, that’s it. If I returned to play in Russia, I would do that with my native team, not the one that has bigger ambitions and wants to win something. Anyway, I will try to make it so that my team would play as good as possible. But I will repeat, nothing is clear yet, now it’s all at еру negotiations stage, a lot of options have to be taken into account. Even without a contract, I am still in the NBA system, and it’s a little bit hard for the teams to sign a player knowing that he will leave in 2 or 3 months.

A Russian man has been traditionally notable for his great physical power (that is to say, the muscles). Without muscles you have no place in modern basketball, especially if you are a center. But compared to the Americans we look quite feeble. Why is is so?

– We look quite feeble, I agree. But looking at the training of a guy who starts playing in college and continues his career in the league, you can’t imagine how much time they spend in gyms in America. A hundred times more than we do. People don’t only play basketball, but also work out regularly, whole programs are developed there. We lag behind in this regard, we try to play more with our talent, we want to prevail with tactics, approach, ‘intelligent’ basketball, I’d say. In America it’s purely one-on-one game – you have to be stronger, faster, jump better. It’s also the nature that favors black players making them physically stronger than we are – that is a scientifically proven fact.