Help May Be on Way Soon

Karl Malone and Kobe Bryant could play by the end of the week, Phil Jackson said Monday.

Malone, recovering from a torn medial collateral ligament, said Monday he is “right there” in his recovery. Bryant, who sprained his shoulder Friday night, was optimistic enough to attempt a few right-handed shots during Monday’s shoot-around, though not without some discomfort.

In an interview that advanced about two words at a time, Bryant said he felt “all right.” Asked if it were realistic he would play by Saturday in Chicago, the last of a four-game trip, he said, “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Horace Grant said he would like to play again Wednesday in Boston. He has a sore right hip.

Meanwhile, the manpower issues grew a bit again on Monday. Slava Medvedenko, who has battled a cold for a month, was too ill to play. Devean George, who came into the game with a sore knee, rolled his ankle in the second quarter and left the floor. He returned in the third quarter but appeared limited.

Rick Fox wandered through the locker room before the game, looked around and said, “I’m about two players away from being the healthiest guy on this team.”

*

The Utah Jazz is among the teams expected to have enough salary-cap space to court Bryant, but Bryant said he would not consider the Jazz, which he believes wronged Malone.

On that subject, he was effusive.

“Not the way they’ve been treating Karl,” Bryant said. “They’ve been really unfair. Karl was here for 18 years, worked hard, put his heart into this organization. For them to let him go someplace else the following year, that’s kind of dicey, to do that to a guy, that’s not consistent. That’s not loyalty.... The fact that he went somewhere, they should just let bygones be bygones. I don’t understand the details of the relationship, that’s not really important to me. But if you’re looking at an organization, you’ve got to take that into consideration. I mean, that’s just not right.”

Malone was not in the arena when the Jazz chided Malone and Bryant in a Jan. 24 spoof, but Bryant was. “I was more concerned about Karl, not so much what they said about me,” he said. “How they’re treating him -- that’s his old team, and they do that?”

So, the Jazz could call, but Bryant won’t listen.

“Not right now,” he said. “Not at all. I’m going to sit down this summer and consider everything, but no, I wouldn’t. Not now.”

*

Of the 39 games Malone has sat out, 38 because of his knee injury, three have been against the Jazz.

This time he sat at the end of the bench, the width of a basketball court from Jazz owner Larry Miller, whom he’s alternately feuded with and embraced.

But beyond the afternoon and early-evening news conferences and the handful of derisive signs, the day passed uneventfully. Most of the people stood and cheered when he emerged from the tunnel near the Laker bench, but there was no special moment for Malone at the Delta Center, Jazz management’s believing it would be awkward with Malone out of uniform.

While Malone had railed against the organization and Miller because of the skit the last time the Lakers were in town, almost everyone was over it by Monday.

“I love my new life,” he said. “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I’m happy. The Jazz are happy. They’re winning. I keep up with them. So why can’t both sides be happy and go on?

“I find it hard to believe ‘Karl and Larry are at it again’ when I’m not saying anything.... My new life is great.”

*

While he was in town, Malone attempted to reach Bobbye Sloan, Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan’s wife, who suffers from pancreatic cancer.

He said he called the Sloan house and neither Jerry nor Bobbye was home. Bobbye recently completed a cycle of chemotherapy. Malone and Bobbye had grown close over nearly two decades in Utah, and before the game he wondered aloud how someone he found so sweet could become so ill.

Though he was unable to connect with Bobbye during the afternoon, he said, she brightened his day.

“You ought to call her answer machine,” he said. “The message was so upbeat, I called it back three times.”