AK47 (Official: page 16)

[Klomp]

BTW

“@JerryZgoda: If you're waiting to see A.K. at T.C....Trumped by Putin visit, there will be no news conference until he arrives in late September.”

[C.lupus]

So does Target Center have a limit of only one Russian per month or something? I don't get the connection.

[Klomp]

So does Target Center have a limit of only one Russian per month or something? I don't get the connection.

AK visited Putin after Olympics, when the plan was for AK to come for his press conference.

[C.lupus]

Oh, yeah, that makes more sense.

[dunkonu21]

Shved will be in the running for rookie of the year won't he? I give him a 7% chance of getting it.

[Lucky Striker]

Do you guys think AK47 improved while in Russia or do you expect him to be at the same level as when he played his last season in Utah?

[moss_is_1]

Do you guys think AK47 improved while in Russia or do you expect him to be at the same level as when he played his last season in Utah?

Pry similar to last season in Russia. He should be a little more fresh with a year off, but probably will have a bit of rust to shake off that will even out.

[Basti]

Do you guys think AK47 improved while in Russia or do you expect him to be at the same level as when he played his last season in Utah?

Pry similar to last season in Russia. He should be a little more fresh with a year off, but probably will have a bit of rust to shake off that will even out.

I don't think he will have any rust at all, considering he played a full season (less games though) and at the Olympics. Plus he will have a full training camp and pre-season. His game shouldn't suffer at all.

The only question will be if he can sustain the NBA season. As I said earlier, if he misses less than 5 games it's a win in my book.

[cpfsf]

Do you guys think AK47 improved while in Russia or do you expect him to be at the same level as when he played his last season in Utah?

Pry similar to last season in Russia. He should be a little more fresh with a year off, but probably will have a bit of rust to shake off that will even out.

I don't think he will have any rust at all, considering he played a full season (less games though) and at the Olympics. Plus he will have a full training camp and pre-season. His game shouldn't suffer at all.

The only question will be if he can sustain the NBA season. As I said earlier, if he misses less than 5 games it's a win in my book.

I prefer to see Kirilenko and Roy avoid playing time when possible. They should play limited minutes in preseason games and rested if a decent seed is secured.

[weasel]

I prefer to see Kirilenko and Roy avoid playing time when possible. They should play limited minutes in preseason games and rested if a decent seed is secured.

There are a lot of new pieces here. I think they need to put time on the court together to get a feel for each other. Not just Roy and Kirilenko playing together, but the whole a team.

[UGA Hayes]

I think, especially in the beginning of the season he is going to look good and here is why. Kirlinko's best stretches have always always coincided with him getting to handle the ball more, and with Rubio hurt at the beginning of the season I see that happening again. The real question is what happens when Rubio comes back. He was still a valuable and underrated player on Utah, but there is no doubt that he became a different not as productive player when Williams was on the court.

[Klomp]

I think, especially in the beginning of the season he is going to look good and here is why. Kirlinko's best stretches have always always coincided with him getting to handle the ball more, and with Rubio hurt at the beginning of the season I see that happening again. The real question is what happens when Rubio comes back. He was still a valuable and underrated player on Utah, but there is no doubt that he became a different not as productive player when Williams was on the court.

Rubio didn't have the ball in hands as much as one would think he did last year. This was actually an issue for some posters last year.

[Steve_Holiday]

Rubio didn't have the ball in hands as much as one would think he did last year. This was actually an issue for some posters last year.

so long as rubio was on the court, even one offensive play with ridnour directing things usually ended up in an angry post or two. i think this was much more of an issue on the boards than one on the court.

[eyeteeth]

I think, especially in the beginning of the season he is going to look good and here is why. Kirlinko's best stretches have always always coincided with him getting to handle the ball more, and with Rubio hurt at the beginning of the season I see that happening again. The real question is what happens when Rubio comes back. He was still a valuable and underrated player on Utah, but there is no doubt that he became a different not as productive player when Williams was on the court.

Rubio didn't have the ball in hands as much as one would think he did last year. This was actually an issue for some posters last year.

Best I can figure, when Rubio has the ball in his hands, everyone benefits. He sees the court so well, and gets the ball to the perfect player a high percentage of the time. I doubt this will be an issue.

If we saw one thing last year, without any kind of preseason, Rubio was a very easy guy for people to learn to play with.

[weasel]

I think, especially in the beginning of the season he is going to look good and here is why. Kirlinko's best stretches have always always coincided with him getting to handle the ball more, and with Rubio hurt at the beginning of the season I see that happening again. The real question is what happens when Rubio comes back. He was still a valuable and underrated player on Utah, but there is no doubt that he became a different not as productive player when Williams was on the court.

Rubio didn't have the ball in hands as much as one would think he did last year. This was actually an issue for some posters last year.

Best I can figure, when Rubio has the ball in his hands, everyone benefits. He sees the court so well, and gets the ball to the perfect player a high percentage of the time. I doubt this will be an issue.

If we saw one thing last year, without any kind of preseason, Rubio was a very easy guy for people to learn to play with.

And he won't have a preseason again this year. You have to wonder how much more he could do if he wasn't missing his first two training camps/preseason. I'm not talking about his own physical skill set, but his knowledge of his teammates. Training camp is the best time of the year for him to figure out all of the "if I do this, Kirilinko likes doing that" intricacies.

[Vindicater]

Rubio didn't have the ball in hands as much as one would think he did last year. This was actually an issue for some posters last year.

so long as rubio was on the court, even one offensive play with ridnour directing things usually ended up in an angry post or two. i think this was much more of an issue on the boards than one on the court.

The ball needed to be in either Rubios, Loves, Pekovics or Bareas hands last year. They were the only people I had any confidence in.

With Barea it was game dependent on if I was confident with him or not (as it usually is with streaky players)