Malone Makes a Final Call

Karl Malone, who spent 18 seasons with the Utah Jazz before joining the Lakers for an eventful yet unfulfilled final season, will announce his retirement Sunday in Salt Lake City.

Malone, 41, scored 36,928 points, second to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in NBA history, and carried a reputation of being unafraid to throw an elbow if it helped get a rebound or clear space on the way to the basket.

And that, he said Friday, was how he wanted to be remembered.

“I wanted to be able to run and jump when I was done,” he said in a telephone interview. “As athletes, sometimes we stay too long. I did not want that to happen.”

Malone also said he “never recovered” from the death of his mother in 2003. “I think 50% of basketball is physical and 50% is mental,” he said. “I would train five or six hours a day, but I never forgot about her.”

A 14-time All-Star, Malone teamed with guard John Stockton to form one of the more famous duos in league history, but they failed to carry the Jazz to victory in two NBA Finals.

Malone signed with the Lakers last season at a reduced salary in hopes of earning an elusive championship ring, and he played a key role as the team advanced to the Finals. But Malone sustained a knee injury and sat out some or all of the last three games of a five-game loss to the Detroit Pistons.

“The hope was he’d play a couple of years with us, break the [scoring] record and win the championship,” Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak said. “I’m disappointed for him. I don’t think the record was that important for him ... that he didn’t get the championship, which is what he was mostly after, that’s the bigger disappointment.

“I’m sure this was a decision he thought long and hard about. It’s my guess the weight of the world is off his shoulders right now. You feel that way when you make a big decision like that.”

Malone’s agent, Dwight Manley, said his client’s retirement marked “the end of old school” and “the official nail in the coffin of the end of an era.”

“I always told him that once he leaves, that would be it,” Manley said. “He was one of a kind.”

Malone thought about returning for one final season in Los Angeles but was involved in a public dispute with Kobe Bryant and turned his back on a reunion with the Lakers.

Bryant and Malone, neighbors in a gated Newport Beach community, had a public falling out two months ago when Bryant accused Malone of coming on to his wife, Vanessa, during a Laker game. Malone denied the allegation but apologized to Bryant.

Malone, who played college basketball at little-known Louisiana Tech, was the 13th overall selection in the 1985 draft. He averaged 14.9 points and 8.9 rebounds in his rookie season for the Jazz and became a powerful post player with a deft touch on midrange jump shots.

After years of playoff frustration, Malone helped take the Jazz to the Finals in 1997 and 1998, but Utah lost both times in six games to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

Malone and the Jazz parted after the 2002-03 season, and Malone turned to the Lakers, who signed him and Gary Payton on the same day in July 2003. Malone helped make it possible by agreeing to the smaller $1.5-million veterans’ exception so that Payton could take the $4.9-million mid-level exception.

Almost immediately, Malone found disharmony and discord on the Lakers, complicated by the first serious injury of his career and continual squabbling between Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant.

Malone befriended both Laker stars and averaged 13.2 points and 8.7 rebounds last season but sat out 39 regular-season games because of an injury to his right knee in December.

He recovered in time to help a late Laker rally that led to a Pacific Division championship on the final day of the regular season. He was a key part of wins over San Antonio in the Western Conference semifinals and Minnesota in the West finals.

Malone took the setback against the Pistons hard and declined a second-year option on his contract shortly after the season ended. He needed time to think and to see what became of O’Neal, Bryant, Payton and Coach Phil Jackson.

It had also been almost a year since Malone’s mother passed away, an event that pulled his attention further from basketball.

After he opted out of his contract, Malone spoke of a fondness for Laker followers.

“The people have become so important to me,” Malone said in July. “That’s what’s tough. I could never have imagined what the people would do for me personally, in a single year.... I get strength from that and I got through a difficult time in my life, with my mother passing and then getting hurt. However it goes, I will never forget these people.”

He had surgery on his right knee within two weeks of last season’s end, a difficult time for Malone as he rested in Newport Beach before retreating with his family to his Arkansas ranch, where he hunted, fished and contemplated his future.

He leaned toward retirement on some days. On others, he considered returning to the Lakers, or playing alongside Tim Duncan in San Antonio, or, briefly, reuniting in Miami with O’Neal, who, after being traded in July, flooded Malone with calls like a college coach chasing a can’t-miss recruit.

Malone was irritated with the Lakers because he said they didn’t consult with him or inform him of the O’Neal deal, which he found out about in TV and newspaper reports. But Malone still considered the Lakers his primary choice, stopping by practices and sitting in the front row of games until he and Bryant clashed in December.

Malone has been offered jobs with a few organizations, including the Lakers, and could also pursue a career as a broadcaster. He is not expected to take the Laker job, a yet-to-be-specified front-office position that would likely include consulting or scouting.

“He’s got a lot of options,” Manley said. “Probably right now he’ll just chill.”

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He Delivered

Career highlights of Karl Malone:

* Ranks second all-time in points scored with 36,928, behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387)

* Two-time NBA most valuable player (1996-97, 1998-99), one of only nine players in NBA history to win it twice

* Eleven-time All-NBA First Team selection (1988-89, 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1993-94, 1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98 and 1998-99), two-time All-NBA Second Team selection (1987-88 and 1999-2000), and a 2000-01 All-NBA Third Team selection

* Fourteen-time NBA All-Star selection who played in 12 games (missed 1990 game due to injury and the 2002 game due to family illness), including 10 consecutive contests from 1991 to 2001

* Holds the NBA record most consecutive seasons scoring 2,000 or more points (11, 1987-88 to 1997-98) and shares the record with Michael Jordan for most career 2,000-point seasons (11, 1987-88 to 1997-98)

* Tied Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (17) for most consecutive seasons scoring at least 20.0 points per game (1986-87 to 2002-03)

* Scored a career-high 61 points, the most by a Jazz player since the franchise moved to Utah, against the Milwaukee Bucks on Jan. 27, 1990

* Scored a Jazz playoff-record 50 points and grabbed 12 boards against the Seattle SuperSonics on April 22, 2000

* Holds the NBA record for most seasons leading the league in free-throws made (seven, 1988-89 to 1992-93, 1996-97, 1997-98) and most consecutive seasons leading the league in free-throws made (1988-89 to 1992-93)

* Passed Moses Malone (8,531) to become the NBA’s all-time leader in free throws made (9,787) on March 24, 2001 vs. the Washington Wizards

* Became the all-time leader in free throws attempted on Dec. 10, 2001 against the Mavericks

* Ranks second all-time in field goals made with 13,528 behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (15,837)

* Ranks second all-time in minutes played at 54,852, trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (57,446)

* Ranks sixth all-time in rebounds, with 14,968

* Appeared in the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals against the Chicago Bulls

* A member of the men’s basketball “Dream Team” that won the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and the 1996 Dream Team that won gold in Atlanta

* Selected in 1996 as one of the “50 Greatest Players in NBA History”

Source: NBA