NBA Lockout: Andrei Kirilenko's Russia Move Another Bad Omen for NBA Season

The signing of Andrei Kirilenko to CSKA Moscow today is just another NBA body falling off of the sinking ship that is the NBA’s 2011 regular season.  

Kirilenko, who is a free agent when and if the NBA’s Owners and Players Association can agree to a new labor deal, has it known that he wants to re-sign with the Utah Jazz.  

The Jazz were the team that drafted Andrei from this CSKA Moscow team in 1999.  

Instead of sitting around and waiting for these two sides to agree to a deal that looks more and more far apart than coming together, Kirilenko decided to head back home signing this three-year deal.  

The deal does allow for Andrei to resume his NBA career whenever the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is decided. A move that CSKA’s head coach Jonas Kazlauskas was not happy about, “My opinion is, you should not take the NBA player during the lockout." “If they can leave you, you don’t know what to expect, and only the weak teams can take this kind of step. At the same time, every rule has its exception, and Kirilenko is the exception.”  

But Kirilenko seems happy to be back home with the team that he began his professional basketball career with, "I am glad to be back with the team where I spent my years of adolescence," Kirilenko said in news release on the CSKA website. "It’s a pleasure to have a chance to play for Russian fans, my friends and relatives." 

He is the best Russian player to come from the country as this signing is a big deal there. Here in the United States it’s just another NBA All-Star who is frustrated that every day it looks more and more that the NBA regular season will be canceled. 

The lockout has already canceled such NBA events like rookie amps, training camps and the NBA’s preseason.  

We’re in the beginning of October with no agreement and little progress with the NBA’s opening night of Nov. 1 approaching very quickly.  

The signing of Kirilenko to Moscow is another player seeing the obvious writing on the wall. The two NBA parties looks as if it’s going the way of the NHL during their lockout. The commissioner has no problem shutting the league down for the entire 2011 season to fix the bad deal the owners signed to during the last CBA signing.  

As the NBA losses more days of their calendar season we will see more players looking for basketball leagues elsewhere. 

Source: Boston Herald 

Twitter: @tjmcaloon