TUESDAY, 9:22am: Kirilenko has officially opted in, the team announced via press release.
MONDAY, 5:57pm: Forward Andrei Kirilenko has decided to opt in with the Nets for next season at $3.3MM, a source tells David Aldridge of NBA.com (on Twitter). Kirilenko inked a one-year deal with a player option with the Nets last summer that caused quite a bit of controversy in NBA circles.
AK47 turned down a $10MM+ player option with the Timberwolves to sign a one-year, ~$3.1MM deal with Brooklyn that included a player option at roughly the same total. Almost instantly, executives were in an uproar and accusations of impropriety starting flying quickly. The league looked into the matter though and, ultimately, the Nets and Kirilenko were cleared of any wrongdoing.
Kirilenko walked from a big payday with the Wolves and didn’t really boost his value in his first season with the Nets. In 45 games, Kirilenko averaged 5.0 PPG, 3.2 RPG, and 1.6 APG in 19.0 minutes per night. The 33-year-old was dogged by back trouble early in the season and had something of an up-and-down year after that. The Nets were 30-15 in the games that Kirilenko played in but coach Jason Kidd took the veteran out of the game plan for more than one postseason contest.
Kirilenko did not opt out of his $10 million deal to sign a $3.3 million deal, he opted out in an effort to secure a long-term deal at a slightly lower AAV. A sign-and-trade to the Spurs fell through, and by then most teams willing to spend their full MLE (or had more in cap space) had already committed their resources elsewhere. By the time Kirilenko agreed with the Nets, he wasn’t leaving much, if any, money on the table, signing a short-term deal that allowed him flexibility, comfort with ownership, and a chance to contend.
I think it’s a matter of semantics, but I believe the point is clear that one event followed the other. There was quite an uproar when Kirilenko signed his deal with the Nets, since it seemed likely he could get significantly more from another team, so he probably left quite a bit on the table to join the Nets.
–Chuck