" Andrei Kirilenko was at ease.

As widely discussed photos of his newly tattooed back made waves Monday on the Internet, the longtime Jazz forward focused on more serene images. Primarily, his wide-open future and a summer he hopes will be filled with freedom, international competition and national pride.

Just 51 days remain on Kirilenko's contract with Utah. June 30 will mark the official end of his 10-year run in Salt Lake City, leaving AK as a free agent at the same time the NBA plunges into a period of uncertainty.

But Kirilenko was diplomatic and even-keeled all season about the possibility that he will eventually reunite with the Jazz, and he was breathing even easier nearly a month removed from Utah's turmoil-filled 2010-11 campaign.

Kirilenko feels optimistic, his mind is clear and his body has healed. The latter is key. After missing Utah's final 10 games due to nagging injuries, the Russian native is healthy and plans to play for his home country in the 2011 European Basketball Championship. The tournament is scheduled from Aug. 31 to Sept. 18 in Lithuania.

"I feel pretty good," said Kirilenko, who is set to fly back to Russia this week and doesn't plan to return to the United States until August. "I was pretty close at the end of the year. But, obviously, we ended [the season] a little bit early."

Not even an inquiry about negative comments recently made by Jazz CEO Greg Miller concerning Kirilenko's injury-prone history altered his casual demeanor. Miller told a local television station that he has concerns about the veteran's durability and reluctance to play through injuries, acknowledging that he sometimes questioned whether Kirilenko could have taken the court instead of sitting on the sideline in a suit.

The injured party's response?

"I'm not paying attention to that," said Kirilenko, who missed 133 games after signing a six-year, maximum-contract extension in 2004.

Instead, he continued to focus on the positive. He referred to former teammates John Stockton and Karl Malone as two of the premier players to ever wear an NBA uniform, while praising ex-Jazz coach Jerry Sloan as one of the greatest in the game's history."