Brooklyn Nets guard Sergey Karasev denied a report that he was seeking a trade from the Nets, which originated from comments by his father Vasily in an interview with a Russian magazine.
From the Bergen Record:
“My dad, he’s my biggest fan,” said Karasev, who has played only six minutes in three games this season under coach Lionel Hollins. “So he has his own opinion and I can’t control something he said to the press. … I am with the Nets and I love this organization. I like coach Hollins. So I just try to keep working hard.”
…
“Yes, I talked with him. And he said to me, ‘I know, I apologize,’” Karasev said of his father. “That’s his opinion, I mean, like, I can’t control this. I mean, he can say whatever he thinks, but that’s not what I’m thinking right now. So we’re thinking different directions.”
“Sergey’s father is a father,” Hollins told reporters Friday morning at Nets shootaround (courtesy of MassLive.com). “I’m a father. I had sons that played basketball. I had a daughter that played basketball. We all want our kids to be first position. So he has his opinion, and I understand where he’s coming from as a father, but it’s just that. It’s his opinion.”
Hollins knows a fair bit about that feeling. Hollins’s son Austin Hollins played with the Nets during Summer League, and in an interview broadcast on NBA TV suggested his son play more. The younger Hollins immediately picked up more minutes in the rotation.
The Record additionally reported that Hollins and Karasev shared a laugh at the end of shootaround. But Hollins said he didn’t have a specific message to relay.
“I haven’t had a message to Sergey,” Hollins added. “Just keep working hard. This is the league. There’s 13 players that dress for a game, and there’s probably going to be 8 to 10 that play. And then everybody else has to be ready when their number is called, and the way you get ready is you come to practice every day and you put in a day’s work and you work because you’re still getting paid.
“This is the business of basketball, not the playing of basketball. Not the playing of basketball, the business of basketball. When your number’s called, you go out there and you try to do the best you can so that your number keeps getting called.”
Karasev played in 33 games (16 starts) last season, averaging under five points per game. Karasev’s father lit into the franchise in the interview, saying the Nets were “in disarray” and accused the organization of keeping Karasev out of the lineup for “political reasons.”
