Kirilenko doesn't want a trade

It's fed largely by the active imaginations of pot-stirrers, words lost in translation and — big shock here — misleading information on the Internet.

Yet it's out there:

A perception — not just in Utah, but in NBA parts near and far — that Russian forward Andrei Kirilenko of the Jazz thinks he'll be traded.

Simply not so, Kirilenko makes quite clear when asked about an online chat that he conducted last week with fans in his native language — and that left some sensing the starting small forward firmly believes his Jazz days are numbered.

"I said, 'There is always possibility to be traded,"' said Kirilenko, who admittedly has struggled during his sixth season with the Jazz — and who is Utah's highest-paid player with a contract that is worth $12.39 million this season and has another four seasons remaining worth roughly $63 million. "That's my point. I don't want to be traded, and I don't want to move to another team. It's not like I want to be traded.

"But," added Kirilenko, who turns 26 four days before the NBA's Feb. 22 NBA trade deadline, "there always is possibility for the player who has huge contract and (is) not playing on the highest note. ... That's the point: Nobody in NBA secure, like 100 percent. Everybody can be traded, everybody can be moved. So I am ready for any kind of turn in my career."

Kirilenko says what he does despite the fact both coach Jerry Sloan and Jazz basketball boss Kevin O'Connor have stressed they have no plans whatsoever to trade their 2004 All-Star.

Yet he also says it knowing talk was stirred last month, partly because of comments from Jazz owner Larry H. Miller about Kirilenko's play this season, and that newspapers in locales including Chicago and Portland have published stories addressing the matter.

Miller's words prompted other teams to call O'Connor checking on Kirilenko's availability, and when word spread of one in particular supposedly having interest — New Jersey — Jazz brass went to great lengths to personally tell him no such deal was in store.

Nationally, pundits ponder possibilities — and one with a good grasp of the big picture lends perspective.