If the only thing you can hold against a player is that he couldn’t win a championship against the GOAT, you must have been pretty damn good.
That is Karl Malone’s career in a nutshell. Whenever Malone’s name comes up among the greatest power forwards in NBA history, the first criticism is almost always the same: he never won a championship. That’s true, but his two best opportunities ended against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in back-to-back NBA Finals.
Take the lack of a championship away and Malone’s résumé is almost impossible to argue with. Two MVP awards. More than 36,000 career points. Fourteen All-NBA selections. Eleven straight First Team selections and nearly two decades of remarkable consistency.
The Mailman delivered for a very, very long time.
Karl Malone is our #3 greatest power forward of all time.
The Mailman Arrives in Utah
The Utah Jazz selected Malone with the 13th overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft, and it didn’t take long for him to establish himself as one of the league’s premier power forwards. Alongside John Stockton, Malone became one half of one of the most successful partnerships in NBA history.
Everyone knew what was coming. Stockton and Malone would run the pick-and-roll over and over again, and teams still struggled to stop it. Malone combined tremendous strength with mobility, soft touch around the basket and a reliable mid-range jumper.
There was nothing particularly complicated about the formula. It simply worked. Year after year after year.
A Scoring Machine
Malone’s consistency was almost ridiculous. Beginning with his second NBA season, he averaged at least 20 points per game for 17 consecutive seasons, with 11 of those seasons seeing him average at least 25 points per game.
His best scoring season came in 1989-90 when he averaged 31.0 points and 11.1 rebounds per game while shooting 56.2% from the field.
Malone wasn’t simply accumulating numbers by sticking around forever. During his prime, he was one of the most dominant offensive players in basketball, and unlike many high-volume scorers, he remained remarkably productive as he aged.
Two-Time MVP
Winning one NBA MVP puts a player in rare company.
Malone won two.
His first came in 1997 after averaging 27.4 points, 9.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game while leading Utah to 64 wins. Two years later, at 35 years old, he did it again.
Malone averaged 23.8 points, 9.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game during the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season and captured his second MVP award.
That’s an important part of Malone’s legacy. This wasn’t a player who had one spectacular season surrounded by years of merely being very good. Malone remained one of basketball’s elite players for an extraordinarily long period of time.
Running Into Michael Jordan
The championship is the obvious hole in Malone’s résumé. Utah finally broke through the Western Conference and reached consecutive NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998.
Unfortunately for Malone, waiting on the other side both times were Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
The Jazz pushed Chicago to six games in both Finals but couldn’t get over the final hurdle. Malone’s career is sometimes reduced to those losses, but context matters.
There is a massive difference between failing to contend for a championship and repeatedly putting yourself in position to win one only to run directly into arguably the greatest player and one of the greatest dynasties basketball has ever seen.
Malone never got his ring.
That doesn’t erase everything else he accomplished.
More Than Just a Scorer
Malone’s offensive production gets most of the attention, but he was also an excellent rebounder and a strong defender. He earned four All-Defensive selections, including three First Team selections, while using his strength and physicality to battle some of the best big men of his era.
Malone finished his career averaging 25.0 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. For nearly two decades, you could essentially pencil him in for elite scoring, double-digit rebounding and a playoff appearance.
Utah made the postseason in every single one of Malone’s 18 seasons with the Jazz.
That level of sustained excellence is extremely difficult to replicate.
One of the Greatest Résumés Ever
By the time Malone retired, his list of accomplishments was staggering.
2-time NBA MVP
14-time NBA All-Star
14-time All-NBA selection
11-time All-NBA First Team
4-time All-Defensive selection
36,928 career points
14,968 career rebounds
Malone retired as the second-leading scorer in NBA history, trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the time. Records eventually fall, but the longevity required to reach numbers like those shouldn’t be overlooked.
Karl Malone didn’t reach the mountaintop, but that shouldn’t erase nearly two decades of dominance. His combination of scoring, rebounding, durability, longevity and individual accolades produced one of the greatest careers the power forward position has ever seen.
If two MVPs, nearly 37,000 points and 18 years of dominance aren’t enough because he couldn’t get past Michael Jordan, then we’re asking for something close to perfection.
The Mailman delivered.
Karl Malone is our #3 greatest power forward of all time.
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