Malone, Cuban Can Continue Discussion

In 18-plus NBA seasons, Karl Malone has sat out 11 games, but if it weren’t for suspensions, such as the one that benched him Sunday, it would be only six.

Malone isn’t sure whom to thank for this one, the league office or Dallas owner Mark Cuban, who campaigned for disciplinary action after Malone’s elbow, innocently or not, collided with Maverick Steve Nash’s face on Thursday.

Cuban e-mailed a dossier on Malone’s priors going almost all the way back to grammar school in Louisiana. Malone thinks their history -- Cuban once tried to get Malone for the Mavericks before switching his focus to a failed pursuit of Alonzo Mourning -- had something to do with it too.

“Ain’t no doubt about it,” Malone said Monday. “Ain’t no doubt. But he did what he did. I’m not a guy that holds grudges.

“Like I say, he put together his team that he wanted. I was supposed to be disruptive in the locker room, that’s the reason they didn’t want me....

“I don’t get caught up in that. He’s a guy that probably wishes he could play basketball and can’t, so he just owns a team....

“I don’t resent [criticism]. I’m a big guy that trains myself to take a lot of bumps and bruises. If a Volkswagen hits a Mack truck, who wins?

”... That’s a guy [Cuban] with way too much time and a hell of a lot more money than he’s got time.”

Happily or not, the Mavericks are here Friday, so Malone and Cuban can discuss it, although Malone says he may extend Cuban “the California salute” instead.

Malone wouldn’t say what that was, but it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with his now playing for a California team.

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Gary Payton sat out practice with a bruised thigh but is expected to play against the Knicks tonight.

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Rick Fox and rookie Brian Cook practiced for the first time since the season started. Coach Phil Jackson said Cook, who broke a finger in the exhibition season, may be close to playing, but he doesn’t expect Fox, who underwent surgery on his left foot, before Christmas.

Fox joked that his leg “feels as good as the drugs” that he has ingested make him feel.

“My running up and down the floor north and south is pretty good right now,” Fox said. “East and west is still being worked on....

“It’s been seven months. It was a long summer and a frustrating one at that, but to be where I am right now, to actually be playing basketball again, is an accomplishment itself. Getting to where I’m playing effectively is the next challenge.”

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Malone, who’s 40, said he didn’t really tell Shaquille O’Neal he wanted to play alongside O’Neal until he turns 45, not in earnest, anyway.

“That might be stretching it,” Malone said. “I had five games in a row where I didn’t even play in the fourth quarter and I said -- joking -- ‘If I play like this, I can play another five years.’

“If I was playing 45 minutes or 35, I doubt it, but we’ll see exactly what happens.”

TONIGHT

vs. New York, 7:30, Fox Sports Net

Site -- Staples Center

Radio -- KLAC (570)

Records -- Lakers 17-3, Knicks 7-14

Update -- If this looks like a mismatch, it does annually. And yet, the Knicks have won two of the last three here. Their victory Feb. 16 (with Shaquille O’Neal out and Allan Houston scoring 53) was the Lakers’ last regular-season loss at home. The Knicks have added size, but 37-year-old Dikembe Mutombo is averaging 25 minutes, Antonio McDyess is averaging 19 four games into his comeback and Houston sat out Saturday’s loss to the Warriors with a sore right knee.