Kings president of basketball operations Geoff Petrie said he has discussed Kirilienko with his agent, Marc Fleischer. The Kings have made an offer to Kirilenko, who could command as much as $9 million per season.
Kirilenko does not appear to be in a hurry to return to the NBA.
"He's still in Russia and he's playing for CSKA (Moscow) and he's under contract over there," Petrie said. "He's in a little bit of a different place in that he's making a significant amount of money right now and when and if he chooses to come back to the NBA at this point we'd still be more than interested in talking to him. But it's still from what I can tell in a holding pattern."
With plenty of room under the salary cap the Kings are still looking at ways to upgrade the roster.
"Whether that's to outright sign people - the free agency market obviously starts to dwindle after a certain period of time," Petrie said. "Or through the ability to make trades where you can trade salaries and take on salary which we're still in a position to do because of our salary cap situation."
The Kings attempts to land guard Jamal Crawford failed when he decided to sign with Portland instead of the Kings.
Crawford said on Twitter the Kings were "first class" in his dealings with the front office. But in the end, Crawford took less money to play closer to his hometown of Seattle.
Here is Petrie on Crawford:
"I'd be the first to say, still being an ex-player at the end of the day players should follow their heart. In this case his heart was to go to Portland even though it was for significantly less money than we were willing to offer him. But he's a terrific kid and had an outstanding career to this point. We'll move on from there."
The Kings reportedly offered Crawford $6.5 million for this season while Portland offered $5 million.
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