Friday, 03 Aug 2007 KIRILENKO JOINS THE NATIONAL SIDE Russia's arguably best-ever player Andrei Kirilenko joins the national team to prepare to the coming European Championships. The Russian side are now in Latvia getting ready for the European Championships that will take place in Spain the coming September. Russia's distinguished NBA players Andrei Kirilenko and Viktor Khrypa who missed the first part of the preparations joined the team in Latvia and are striving to help the national side. Andrei Kirilenko, roundly criticized for his lacklustre performance in Utah Jazz the previous season, is likely to captain Russia at the coming tournament. "I think I will be the captain this time, this is no pivotal moment though" said Andrei Kirilenko to Sport Express. "If you are the captain, you have to talk with the head coach on behalf of your teammates and the coach has to take in your opinion." "I've captained many teams, even Utah in the season 2005/06 but NBA captain is a different matter, it is no worse and no better - just different." "I always give 100% when playing for the national side but it doesn't always mean that the result will come." "You can win a game or two yourself but you will lose in the third if there is no top-level coach at the helm of the team." "As for David Blatt who is now coaching the team, I can't say a lot about him." "The results he has achieved with different teams speak for themselves but that's all I can say now." "We are very strong potentially but we are not steady enough." "The reason for it is that it has been a long time since we won something and we don't know what victories taste like." "Savrasenko and Ponkrashov have a wonderful Euroleague experience and that is to our adavantage." "Yet there are more cons than pros so we are no favourites, we go to Spain to fight." The head coach David Blatt unveiled to Sport Express how he is going to play Kirilenko and Khryapa. "Our task is to make the team strong as a whole, highs and lows of this or that particular player won't be pivotal," said Blatt to Sport Express. "Kirilenko and Khryapa have both talent and skills to fit this concept of play and help the partners play better." http://english.sport-express.ru/summary/1_1648/ --

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