Thursday, March 02, 2006

If Only Kobe Had Such a Deal...

Aren't Russians great? [Thanks, Ty]

From the Salt Lake Trib:

Andrei Kirilenko has been granted restricted free agency - by his wife.
Masha Lopatova, a former Russian pop star who has been married to the Jazz forward for nearly six years, understands the temptation NBA players are faced with as they travel around the country for seven months a year. And she believes that forbidding something only makes it more tempting. That's why, she revealed in a story in the current issue of ESPN The Magazine, she allows Kirilenko an "allowance" of one night per year with another woman.
"What's forbidden is always desirable. And athletes, particularly men, are susceptible to all the things they are offered," Lopatova said before the Jazz's loss to Charlotte on Wednesday. "It's the same way raising children - If I tell my child, 'No pizza, no pizza, no pizza,' what does he want more than anything? Pizza.
"So this is the arrangement that Andrei and I have," she said, adding, in the spirit of openness, that she does not have a reciprocal agreement with her husband. "If I know about it, it's not cheating."
Kirilenko, according to the magazine story written by Salt Lake City freelance writer Chad Nielsen, has no plans to exercise his "allowance."
"Of course it was a surprise," Kirilenko said. "I'm not planning to do anything. But she said, 'If you want to do it, you can do it.' "

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