Kirilenko's face flushed a deep crimson Friday as he gamely acknowledged that his wife has granted permission for him to be unfaithful with another woman once per basketball season. The couple revealed that salacious detail of their marriage to a writer for ESPN The Magazine, but Kirilenko said he was shocked at the reaction generated by his "allowance," as the couple call it.

"I didn't mean to take so much attention," Kirilenko said good-naturedly after Friday morning's shootaround. "All media in the nation. . . . Yesterday, it was everywhere."

What made the commotion so odd, Kirilenko revealed later, was that his wife conceived of the arrangement a couple of years ago. It just never became public knowledge until the Russian couple were profiled by Salt Lake City freelance writer Chad Nielsen in the current issue of ESPN The Magazine.

"It's interesting [because] I didn't come up with it. [Nielsen] just said, 'Is it true?' '' Kirilenko said. "It is true. I'm not lying."

No, but he is shocking some of the people who know him best, because he is normally a quiet, unassuming Utah resident. So when news spread of his "allowance," Kirilenko said, the phone began ringing.

"Masha got lots of calls yesterday," Kirilenko said. " 'Masha, are you crazy? What's going on? Why?' Masha said, 'Because it's true.' "

Now that the story has circulated on TV and radio shows around the country, Kirilenko understands what to expect in opposing arenas. "I know. But I'm ready for the jokes," he said.

He hasn't heard many in his own locker room, however. Kirilenko mostly keeps to himself; he usually spends time before games sitting quietly at his locker, reading Russian paperbacks.

"If it was different, like one of [the rookies], we might joke a lot. But Andrei, he's a soft-spoken guy," said point guard Milt Palacio. "It would bother me [to be the subject of such stories], but I wouldn't ask him about it."

He might as well, Kirilenko said. What's left to hide?

"You know everything now," he joked.

Kirilenko said in the ESPN story that he had never taken his wife up on her offer to look the other way, and he repeated Friday that he doesn't agree with the popular assessment that he's lucky to have the opportunity.

"I'm lucky," Kirilenko said, "because I have a wife like Masha, not because of that situation."

pmiller@sltrib.com