| Tuesday, April 25
By Mike Monroe
Special to ESPN.com |
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You have to wonder if the Kings weren't playing possum when they lost
that critical game to the SuperSonics a week ago.
True, they ended up in a first-round matchup with the Lakers, but the
way things are going, that may have been a better matchup than the Utah
Jazz.
|  | | Karl Malone hit 18 of 32 shots from the floor in scoring 50 on the Sonics. |
Shaquille O'Neal? He only hit the Kings for 46 points in that Game 1 blowout.
Karl Malone dropped 50 on the Sonics in Game 1, then made 10-of-13
shots in a Game 2 blowout so thorough the Mailman only had to deliver 28
minutes of court time in a 14-point Utah win that gave new meaning to
the expression "not as close as the final score indicated."
Malone never ceases to amaze. With his 23 points in Game 2 he became
just the fourth player in NBA history with 4,000 or more playoff points.
The others? Michael Jordan, Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry West.
That's pretty heady company, but Malone is comfortable breathing
rarefied air. During the regular season he became just the third player,
and the first non-center (Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain beat him to
that figure) in NBA history to surpass 31,000 career points. Not even
Jordan reached that stratosphere, though his self-imposed exile in 1993
is the only thing that prevented it.
Malone will turn 37 roughly one month after the NBA Finals conclude in
June, July 24 to be specific. To watch him sprinting up and down the
court against the Sonics en route to his 50-point playoff game on
Saturday, though, was to watch a player in his very prime.
I feel utterly secure in declaring that Malone is the most productive
36-year-old in the history of the game.
Supporting evidence: Malone this season averaged 25.5 points and 9.5
rebounds in an average of 35.9 minutes a game.
Abdul-Jabbar at 36 averaged 21.5 points and 7.5 rebounds in 32.8
minutes per game. Chamberlain at 36 averaged an astounding 43.1 minutes
and 18.2 rebounds, but only 13.2 points.
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“ |
This is your job during the season. You're supposed to do your job.
Commitment is the summer, when no one wakes you up; no one sets your
alarm clock; no one gives you an itinerary. You just do it yourself.
” |
|
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— Karl Malone |
Jordan? His Airness retired, for good, before hitting his 36th birthday.
Malone looks as if he can keep on producing numbers similar to those he
put up this season for another five years. Abdul-Jabbar played until he was 42.
Malone hints that he believes he could keep on going even longer. The
only thing he believes might stop him: boredom.
That is because Malone is secure in the knowledge no player ever is
going to outwork him in the summer. The summer, Malone says, is when great players are made.
I recently had occasion to ask Malone about his summer regimen. The
occasion was a statement made by Nuggets coach Dan Issel that Denver's
Antonio McDyess could be as good, or better, than Malone, but only if he
will dedicate himself to improvement the way Malone has during his
career.
Malone didn't disagree with Issel about McDyess' potential for
greatness, but he questioned whether any player, not just McDyess, ever
will work as hard as he does in the offseason.
"The only thing I'll say about it is that you don't become an All-Star
or a great player when the season starts," Malone said. "You just
maintain then. All your work is done in the summer. That's not just with Antonio. That's with ... anybody who wants to
have a long career in this league.
"It's kind of amazing, because you hear what people say, and you read
what people say. But no one really sits down with me and says, 'What's
your routine in the summertime?'
"Of course, I don't allow them to know exactly, but you are made into
a great player in the summertime, when it's so easy not to work. You look at the Nuggets' situation right now. They've got five months off. Well, it's kind of easy to take that first month off. Then it's,
'Aw, shoot, I'll take another month off.' Then it's another two weeks
... and another two weeks, and then you end up a month or so from
training camp, and you want to do this and you want to do that just to
get in shape.
"I've always said the hardest part of my job is the workouts in the
summertime to get ready to play the game. As far as who can become a
great player, well, I've never said, and never will say, I was the most
talented player to play this game, or even my position. But I will say
that it's going to be hard to find somebody who is going to outwork me
the whole season, on and off the court.
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"In the summertime it's easy to get in your nice Benz, fly here and
fly there with five or six of your buddies. but how many of those
buddies are going to say, 'Hey, let's train, let's get in the weight
room?'
"They don't. They're saying, 'Let's hang out here, let's hang out
there.'
"I don't know Antonio's routine in the summer, or anything like that.
I'm just telling you how easy it is. You've got a lot of money; you've
got a lot of nice material things. But a lot of the people you hang out
with are not going to tell you the stuff you really need to hear, like
'Get your ass in the weight room ... do this and do that to get better.'
"That's why I feel I'm going to play, barring injury, until I get
bored. Because a lot of people don't have the commitment, and
commitments are not during the season.
"This is your job during the season. You're supposed to do your job.
Commitment is the summer, when no one wakes you up; no one sets your
alarm clock; no one gives you an itinerary. You just do it yourself.
"It seems like the guys who are committed are a dying breed."
Indeed, we wonder if we ever will see another player who works harder
on his game than Malone has throughout his career.
And we're beginning to wonder if Malone's career ever will end.
Mike Monroe, who covers the NBA for the Denver Post, writes a Western Conference column for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him at monroe128@go.com |  |
