Over the last few months Andrei Kirilenko has complained about playing time, his teammates, his coaches, and his team’s playoff struggles. Despite that, coach Jerry Sloan is adamant he wants the Russian to stick it out with Utah.

“We’re gonna keep him, as far as I’m concerned,” coach Jerry Sloan said Monday. Sloan has a history of disliking trading his star players or letting them go without a fight (until they lose the other player that made them good in the first place, and then want out to “win” a championship before they retire and hope people remember them for the good they did, not the greed they showed at the end of their career), but he did admit that “...we’ve got to do what’s best for the franchise, always.”

Will Andrei stay in Utah? Who knows. He’s the Jazz’s highest paid player, and three years ago their best by far. Recently he’s been playing horribly for the Jazz, partly due to the fact new players have forced him into a forward role he’s not comfortable with. If the Jazz want Kirilenko to return to form, they need to give him more freedom on offense. The days of Stockton and Malone are over, Jerry. Let the Russian guy do things his own way.