Malone Rules NBA at Power Forward : Pro basketball: Many consider the Utah Jazz standout the strongest and best-conditioned player on the planet.

To understand the war Karl Malone wages in and around NBA paint is to understand the warrior.

Few players in any sport step into battle more physically prepared or more mentally willing to lead the impending fight at power forward than the Utah Jazz’s Malone. For years now, he has punished and polished his 6-foot-9, 250-pound frame into a well-proportioned mass of muscle. He has less than 5% body fat and burns up specially made StairMasters during brutal, and deeply private, training sessions that include arduous running drills and high-intensity weight lifting.

Indeed, Malone’s workouts have become as much a part of the attack as the body they have created. Many consider Malone the strongest and best-conditioned basketball player on the planet, and there is plenty of supporting evidence. It’s an edge, perhaps the edge, Malone has worked years creating. He knows it, and by the fourth quarter, so too do all those trying to run around him.

“My workouts are important to me,” Malone says. “I don’t do it for fun, and I don’t do it for glory. I do it because it’s necessary. I feel my strength and endurance give me an advantage, and I want to keep that advantage. If the U.S. goes to war, we’re not going to tell the enemy where our planes are going to attack from, right? Same with me. I don’t want other players to copy me.”

Slim chance. Malone prefers National Geographic to basketball film sessions, pick-up trucks to Mercedes sedans, long-haul trucking and cattle raising to high society and golf. He wears cowboy boots and blue jeans and has little use for jewelry or postgame parties.

Malone’s life, like his game-day approach, remains simple, disciplined and void of stereotype. He doesn’t dwell on an upcoming opponent or study the man scheduled to match up against him. Looking for a glowing quote on another player? Look elsewhere. Malone isn’t a cheerleader, and building up the opposition isn’t part of his game plan.

“I love things that athletes aren’t supposed to like,” he says. “I guess I love my cowboy boots, I love my four-wheel drive trucks, I love getting back on my ranch back home. I love driving the (18-wheel) tractor. I love to hunt and I love to fish. That’s what I mean by a free spirit.

“That’s why I’d see myself coming back as a bald eagle if I came back an animal, something that’s not confined. When I’m playing basketball I am like that.”

With his body tuned, Malone spends game days following a simple regimen designed to prepare the mind. And it never changes. Whether Chicago or Sacramento, Charles Barkley or a rookie, Malone approaches every game the same.

So when a tangle with Detroit’s Isiah Thomas left Thomas on the floor in a puddle of blood, Malone never flinched. He called Thomas, explained the circumstances and refused to change his approach. When comments attributed to Malone were credited with helping push Magic Johnson back into retirement, Malone never backed down. He spoke with Johnson, refused to explain away the quotes and simply marched on. When Portland Coach Rick Adelman suggested that referees were using “Malone rules” when it came to calling fouls on the Jazz forward, Malone shrugged.

“He’s physical, throws his body around and does play the enforcer role on that team,” Chicago Coach Phil Jackson says. “But that’s not the same thing as being dirty. The main thing a coach asks from his players is to be competitive every minute. And Karl Malone is.”

For Malone, that’s a matter of fact and the least of his obligations. Though Malone has been known to let fire inside boil over (he has been among the league leaders in technicals), he knows his role. Like Patrick Ewing in New York and Barkley in Phoenix, Malone also understands his place on the team. Lead by example, he figures, and there isn’t much need for words.

“Going into a ballgame it doesn’t matter how big the game is or what the game means,” Malone says. “I don’t look at Chicago, for example, like a team that just won a championship. I just look at Chicago as another team. I try to prepare for them just like I would for Sacramento or any other team, even those that aren’t supposed to be as good as Chicago. That’s something I’ve tried to do throughout my career. I don’t look at which player I’m playing, and I don’t look back over past ballgames and try to find a reason for revenge.

“You can get so involved in that one-on-one stuff that it takes away from your own game. I just don’t do that.”

Instead, Malone starts going through his game-day paces from the minute he climbs out of bed. He reads the paper and drinks a couple cups of coffee before heading to practice around 9:15 a.m.

As for studying the team he’s about to play, Malone does very little. He goes over the scouting report because that’s what teams do. And though he sits through film sessions, Malone finds few benefits.

“I’m not a film guy,” he says. “I love watching movies. But as far as breaking down play by play? I don’t enjoy that. I don’t start thinking about who we’re playing until I go over the scouting report. But I’m not the kind of guy who will watch an hour of film to find an edge. I think a lot of it is mental. I feel like I can adjust as the game goes on if I need to. If you’re a true professional, you can do that. You don’t need to watch the guy on film for an hour. But they spend a lot of money on scouting reports. They told us once they spent something like $150,000 a year on scouting reports. I think that’s a $150,000 waste of money.”

From Malone’s perspective, that’s understandable. And besides, who can argue with the results?

A 48% free-throw shooter as a rookie, Malone has hit better than 76%% over the last five seasons. He has averaged 26.1 points and 10.9 during his eight-year career. And he has improved virtually every facet of his game, coming off a 1992-93 season that included career bests in assists and blocks and near career highs in shooting (.522), steals and rebounds.

“A player has to have it within himself to be good,” says Utah Coach Jerry Sloan, who played with similar convictions. “Karl has gotten better each year because he wants to improve and be recognized for his work habits.”

It’s all part of the routine.

“After practice I go eat at the same restaurant, the same spot, the same seat pretty much, on game day,” says Malone. “I don’t talk about anything to do with business. I never mix business and basketball on game day. And I don’t spend a lot of time with my wife or my little daughter. I go home and play with my daughter for five, maybe 10 minutes and that’s it. Then I get a nap. I go to bed about 1 o’clock and sleep for about three hours. Then I get up, take a shower and head to the arena. I get there at 5 o’clock for a 7 o’clock game. I get taped, sit around and then go out and shoot for about five minutes. That’s how I get ready every game.”

The rest, Malone says, is mental. He has missed just four games in eight NBA seasons, one in the last four seasons. For all the physical attributes and improvements, at this point in his career Malone wages war most often from the inside out. He devours players showing the slightest weakness and intensifies his attack the moment he senses an opponent’s fatigue.

Says Larry Smith, “When you play the Mailman, be ready to bang, be ready to run, be ready to go all night long.”

Says Malone: “Some guys come out and do everything for a quarter or two, but when that third quarter rolls around that energy isn’t as high. That’s what I look forward to. I’m going to be competitive. I watch a lot of nature shows, and you see lions marking their territory. That’s what I sort of remind myself of. You have to.

“All of a sudden you let one guy in there and you have a reputation as a soft guy. You can’t just allow someone to come into your area and take over. I’ve never been a guy to talk a good game and then go out and go through the motions. I go out and play as hard as I can. That’s why it’s the law of the jungle . . . The minute you step onto the court, somebody is going to try to take something from you.

“I’m not saying I’m the best at my position, but I know guys read the paper and they see things written about you and they think, ‘I’m going to play this guy hard.’ I can feel it. But it’s true what they say. Only the strong survive. If you’re weak in the jungle, somebody’s going to eat you. When you’re weak on the basketball court, everybody knows that and everybody takes their shots.”

In other words, survival of the fittest.