Karl Malone, age 37, is asked if he is in the best shape of his career.

	Look at the stat leaders and you'll see -- as always -- Karl Malone's name there.

"I don't know."

He grins, in a way that means he does know.

"When you get older, it's more mental than anything. You want to prove to yourself that you can do certain things. My goal was to come back in the best shape I've ever been in. So I went and did it. It's a mental thing, I guess."

It's a greatness thing, we know.

That's the brilliance of Malone. It's not the MVP awards or Western Conference championships or consideration as the best power forward ever or even the additional recognition that could come within a week by passing Wilt Chamberlain for second place on the all-time scoring list. It's that he shows up every day acting like some undrafted rookie from a Div. II school on the bubble to make the roster, knowing he needs to get better, or else.

He was terrible on free throws early on, and got a lot better.

He was a dominant post player, and turned himself into a jump shooter, at first good enough to keep defenses honest and in time close to unstoppable there too, especially once the fall-way became so dependable.

It's the same thing with the conditioning.

"When he's working out, he lifts every day," Jazz center Olden Polynice said. "He's 37 going on 38. He's lifting after a practice, after a game. The next morning, when most guys can't get up, he's up at 7 o'clock. It's an amazing thing to me, to watch this guy and how he is. You might say in a way he is obsessed with physical fitness. It's like he has to lift, he has to work out. But that's just him, because he knows that's the only way he can keep his edge, if he's in better shape than everybody else. Some other guys come into camp 30, 40 pounds overweight, he comes in fit.

"If you're taking care of your body like some of these guys have done, I mean, [John] Stockton can realistically play another four years if he wanted to. I know Karl definitely could. I still have yet to see a young guy out-run Karl Malone. How come nobody's questioning that? How come nobody's saying, 'He's out-running 21-year-olds on a daily basis?' Why don't they question that instead of saying he's too old? We all take care of ourselves and we come out to play and we play a team style of basketball. There's a lot of success with that."

Still.

Malone is on his usual 20-10 track, as constant and dependable for Utahns as knowing the Wasatch Front will be there when they wake in the morning, or at least what remains of the mountain range since Malone has obviously borrowed several peaks to implant as biceps and shoulders. On pace, early or not, for another double top-10 finish. This won't go over well at all at the annual gathering to plan the Jazz funeral.

The fact that the pallbearers would get their ass kicked by one of the supposed walking dead remains something of a problem. The best shape of his career!

"I know how old I am," Malone said. "Stock knows how old he is. We realize that. I think if we were a lot younger, we'd say that's something to put up on the bulletin board. But we know we're old, and we like the way we've aged. So it's not like we've got some kind of personal agenda. We don't even talk about it, because we know it."

	Stockton

	Russell

So comprehension isn't a problem. Hearing isn't a problem, since they understand what everyone is saying about Team AARP; they just choose not to care. Soft foods are still not the primary part of the diet. What was shown in the summer is that reloading isn't a problem either.

The backcourt was weakened by the double blow of Jeff Hornacek's retirement and Howard Eisley's sign-and-trade to Dallas, but the frontline was strengthened by the addition of Danny Manning as a free agent and a kid named Donyell Marshall in trade, giving the Jazz more rebounding and more intelligence. John Starks, after first hoping to land in New York or Miami as a free agent, became Hornacek's replacement at shooting guard. DeShawn Stevenson became his backup, a first-round pick after making the jump from high school.

"Our veteran players have kind of responded to him in a positive way," coach Jerry Sloan said. "It hasn't been a negative response, which you think would maybe happen early. These guys have been terrific with him and I think he's been terrific too, trying to do the right thing all the way through."

And just look now. The Jazz continue to give people reason to dig the hole in the ground (losing to the Heat and Spurs and needing overtime to beat the Clippers, all in the first 10 games), but also continue to impress. The Lakers went down. Stockton remains one of the best-shooting guards in the game. Bryon Russell is shooting very well. Count them out at your own risk.

"What I've learned is that this team does not need extra motivation," Polynice said. "They're already self-motivated or they never would have succeeded at this level. We never look at stuff like that and say, 'Well, somebody's calling us old, we've got to go out and prove something.' Until somebody can outdo us and show us a different way that's better, we're going to keep doing the same things we've been doing. Some teams might have a little bit better talent than we do, but I don't think any team is ever going to work harder than us."

At least not until Malone starts on the decline. But 10 years is a long wait.

Scott Howard-Cooper covers the NBA for the Sacramento Bee and is a new regular contributor to ESPN.com.