Another Sad Ending for Best of the Lakers

If there was any reason left at all to care about a Laker team that barely seemed to care itself at the end, it was Karl Malone.

Then he sat out of Game 5, taking every last bit of sentiment and what little remained of the Lakers’ grittiness with him.

He couldn’t go anymore. That body, the most envied physique in the league, let him down. With one last chance to prolong his career-long pursuit of a championship at hand, with the Lakers’ uncertain future and his own potential retirement in front of him, Malone was on the sidelines, unable to do anything to stop the Detroit Pistons onslaught in their 100-87 NBA Finals-clinching victory.

The irony.

The guy who made a point of always suiting up, who made it through 10 of his first 18 years without missing a game and never missed a playoff game, missed half the regular season and then the playoff finale.

The guy who never made excuses wound up being the one and only excuse the Lakers could offer.

Although the Pistons were the superior team from the outset and grew more convincing every time out, we never got a chance to see what they would have done with the Lakers’ best shot. Without Malone at full strength, the Lakers were a rifle without the sight.

“There will be a lot of what-ifs, things that happened for us this year and in particular this series,” Derek Fisher said. “Karl meant a lot to this team, on and off the court and I don’t think a lot of people really understood that. It was very evident during the regular season when he missed [40] games, how much he meant to this team. I don’t know if we fully appreciated the things he was capable of doing to help us out. What-ifs, who knows ... the Pistons won the title, and that’s for sure. We do know that. All we can do is congratulate them.”

Yes, the one certainty is Pistons in five. There’s no space in the record books to denote injuries, just as the Lakers’ 2004 Western Conference champion hats don’t have an asterisk to remind all that they beat the Minnesota Timberwolves without Sam Cassell.

Maybe it’s better that his name won’t be in the box score, because he wouldn’t want to be associated with this game.

The rest of the Lakers exhibited all of their worst attributes. Kobe Bryant fired away, regardless of whether it was a high- or low-percentage shot. Shaquille O’Neal kept missing free throws, another night when he made more than half of his shots from the field but couldn’t shoot 50% from the line. Gary Payton went to the bench for the last time talking, what he’ll be remembered for more than anything else this season. Malone was always the Laker who showed the best qualities on the Lakers.

It started last summer. Of the two salary slots the Lakers had available, Malone took the lesser, the $1.5-million veterans exception, while Payton signed for the $4.9-million midlevel exception.

During the season, while the other stars battled for the ball, Malone never begged for more touches to the media -- even though he spent more time talking to the media than anyone this side of Coach Phil Jackson. While the rest of them let Bryant drift through his unprecedented season of legal drama and intrasquad strife, Malone forged a friendship with him.

Words you wouldn’t associate with most Lakers, such as integrity and accountability, fit Malone.

“Karl is, in no way, as dysfunctional as the rest of us,” Rick Fox said.

Malone took a liking to “The Last Samurai,” watching the DVD a lot during this postseason.

He identified with Tom Cruise’s character Nathan Algren, and the way he kept climbing back to his feet when rival Ujio decked him during a training fight.

That’s the way Malone felt, trying to overcome the nagging pains and the first major injury of his career, always finding a way back into the lineup.

During the playoffs he injured an ankle during the San Antonio series, had fluid drained from his knee during the Minnesota series, then in Game 2 of the finals, he sprained the same ligament in his right knee that kept him sidelined for 39 games during the regular season.

What Malone neglected to mention was that the scene ends with Algren bloodied, on his back, in the mud, with the rain falling on him.

For Malone it finished just as bad. Walking off the court a loser, in a blue-gray outfit instead of the Laker uniform, the red-white-and-blue Detroit confetti falling down on him from the rafters of the Palace.

In the locker room, one Laker after another came up to Malone to apologize.

“They were saying they were sorry,” Malone said. “I told them, ‘Sorry for what?’ The decision I made to come here, I would do it all over again with these guys in this locker room. I did things on my terms, I did things like I wanted to do.

“I’m happy with the decision I made and I will continue to be happy with the decision I made.”

His next decision will be whether or not to return. He has discussed retirement, he has wondered if it isn’t time to be with his family. Before that, he’ll meet with the doctors and take an MRI exam on the knee. If he’s not assured of being 100% sound by the start of training camp, he definitely won’t come back.

And if he doesn’t come back, he will retire as the No. 2 scorer in NBA history, and retire without a championship ring.

“Everybody says, ‘God, he should’ve’ ” Malone said. “I always say, there’s guys that got rings that don’t deserve to have ‘em. And there’s guys that you think deserve ‘em that don’t have ‘em. I happen to be one of those.”

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Uncertain Future

The Laker roster figures to be much different next season, with as many as eight free agents, including Coach Phil Jackson. The contract status of each player:

STARTERS

Shaquille O’Neal, center: Under contract for two more seasons.

Kobe Bryant, guard: Under contract, but can become a free agent.

Karl Malone, forward: Option to return, can become a free agent.

Gary Payton, guard: Option to return, can become a free agent.

Devean George, forward: Under contract for two more seasons.

RESERVES

Derek Fisher, guard: Under contract, but can become a free agent.

Rick Fox, forward: Under contract for another season.

Slava Medvedenko, forward: Becomes a free agent.

Kareem Rush, guard: Under contract for another season.

Luke Walton, forward: Team has option to renew his contract.

Brian Cook, forward: Under contract for two more seasons.

Bryon Russell, forward: Becomes a free agent.

INJURED LIST

Horace Grant, forward: Becomes a free agent.

Jamal Sampson, center: Team has option to renew his contract.

HEAD COACH

Phil Jackson: becomes a free agent.