The bangs and biceps are new.

The guy who's sporting them this year certainly isn't.

Even with an altered appearance, Andrei Kirilenko — loaded guns, non-spiky hair and all — is the player Utah Jazz fans are most used to seeing on the team after all these years. Believe it or not, this will be his ninth year in the NBA and in Utah.

Kirilenko isn't the face of the franchise like many figured he would be when he signed a max contract five years ago to the date — on Oct. 28, 2004.

But through attrition, the Russian forward has become the longest-tenured Jazz player on the team. He is also now the last remaining link — if you count active players, and we are — between the modern Jazz squad and the drifting-further-into-the-past Stockton-to-Malone era.

As of last season, Jarron Collins and Matt Harpring were the only other remaining players who'd been teammates of Utah's dynastic duo.

Collins, however, is Phoenix-bound after not being re-signed by Utah and getting waived by Portland. Harpring continues to rest his injured knee and ankle at his Atlanta home, with his NBA playing days seemingly over.

That leaves Kirilenko as the team's elder statesman as far as years served in Utah goes.

"I'm the only one left. It makes me feel older," he said. "I don't feel old physically, but mentally, yeah, I feel like I've been (here) a long time."

Kirilenko officially joined the Jazz in 2001, but he's been in the fold since getting drafted in the first round as an 18-year-old back in 1999.

Only seven players — of the 216 who've donned Jazz uniforms the past 35 years — have played in more games and had longer stays with the organization.

Kirilenko has a whole decade to go before reaching the seniority status earned by John Stockton (19 years) or Karl Malone (18), but he's already outlasted the likes of Rickey Green (eight), Adrian Dantley (seven) and Jeff Hornacek (seven). With another year on his contract, Kirilenko would reach his 10-year Utah anniversary to match Mark Eaton, Greg Ostertag, Darrell Griffith and Thurl Bailey in 2010-11.

Kirilenko has gone through thick and thin times in Utah.

Highlights of his unique, hustling talent include an All-Star season in 2004, multiple selections to the NBA's All-Defensive teams and becoming only the second NBA player ever to fill up boxscores and stat sheets with multiple 5x5 games.

Lowlights include a rough 2006-07 season, including a teary-eyed postseason, and an even rougher offseason in which he earned accolades as Europe's best player but talked about not wanting to play in Utah anymore.