Karl Malone says Goodbye

Karl Malone on Draft Night, June 1985

Malone Played for the Jazz for 18 seasons.

After more than a year away from Utah, Karl Malone is coming back home. The free-agent, who spent last season with the Los Angeles Lakers, has turned down offers from teams across the NBA to return to the place where is career started 20 years ago.

Along with his teammate of almost two decades, John Stockton, Malone made the Jazz a force to be reckoned with in the NBA. The forward pushed the Jazz deep into the playoffs, reaching the NBA Western Conference Finals five times and the NBA Finals twice.

In 1985, the Jazz drafted the 6-9 forward out of Louisiana Tech. At the time few could have ever imagined the many different ways Malone would change the power forward position. He transformed weaknesses into strengths, improving his free throws, stretching defenses with 18-foot jump shots and running the floor like a point guard.

His scoring became so prolific during his career that many Jazz fans often took his consistency for granted. Malone holds the NBA record for most consecutive seasons scoring 2,000 or more points (11) and shares the record with Michael Jordan for most career 2,000 point seasons (11).

Malone will retire as the NBA’s second all-time leader in scoring (36,374), trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Of his 36,000 plus points 9,787 were free throws, the most in NBA history.

Yet his game was never one dimensional. Malone racked up rebounds almost as fast as he did points, pulling down 14,601, placing him seventh all-time in NBA history. His defense became one of his best assets and the league took notice naming him to the NBA All-Defensive First Team three times and the Second Team once.

The forward was named an All-Star 14 times during his career, wining the game’s MVP in Houston in 1990 and in Salt Lake City in 1993, where his co-MVP was John Stockton.

But perhaps the pinnacles of his illustrious career are the two MVP awards he won in 1996-97 and in 1998-99. Malone is one of only nine players in NBA history to win the award more than once.

And though he will retire without an NBA title, the forward is one of the select athletes in history that can say he represented his country in the Olympics. Malone was given a coveted spot on the 1992 Olympic “Dream Team” that featured Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, John Stockton and Clyde Drexler. He would help lead the team to a gold medal and returned again to the international stage in 1996 to help the USA squad repeat as first place finishers.