By Aris Barkas
CSKA won 73-71 at Bilbao, the Moscow team qualified to Euroleague Final Four (3-1) and Andrei Kirilenko is again the MVP. To be exact AK-47 is the play offs Game 4 MVP and of course he is the main favorite for the title of season MVP.
On Friday he got 23 points, 8 rebounds and an index rating of 29. So for the fourth time this season and second in the play offs he was the MVP, which is also most in the league. By the numbers Kirilenko is already the automatic season MVP. He is the top scorer of the play offs with 17,5 points per game, he is by far first in the index rating (24,07) for the whole season and also the first rebounder (7,2). Plus his team is the favorite to win the Euroleague title.
The only thing that one may say against him is that he is leading CSKA, a juggernaut of talent, and he has teammates that can make life easier for him. But in the last game against Bilbao, Kirilenko didn’t have any problem to shoulder heavy burden and lead his team to the close win, that translated to Final Four qualification.
He seems destined to be the player that personifies the 2011-12 Euroleague season and only one thing may change that. The season MVP is announced after the semifinals of the Final Four and you can’t be the MVP and not be playing in the Final. But who would bet against CSKA Moscow not to be at least in the Final, even with possible semifinal opponents like Panathinaikos and Maccabi Tel Aviv?