NBA: Giving The Mailman His Due

By Noah Davis UsFANS.com Managing Editor

Off a pass from John Stockton – who else? – Karl Malone breezed past Corliss Williamson and flipped the ball into the basket from the lane he’s owned most of his career. With those two points Karl Malone stepped into basketball immortality as the NBA’s second leading scorer, passing Wilt Chamberlain.

Fans in Utah responded as they should have. They started cheering immediately despite the fact that action continued. And once a dead ball was reached a minute later, the crowd rose as one to more properly honor the man that has helped lead the Jazz to consistent excellence for more than a decade. Malone was swarmed by teammates, who hugged him and gave him high-fives.

Malone responded in kind to the fans with a wave and promptly went back to piling up more points.

Malone finished the game with 31 points, giving him a career total of 31,443. In 14 seasons, Chamberlain scored 31,419 points. It may have taken him a couple more years – exactly 164 games to be precise – than it took Wilt to amass his huge numbers, but The Mailman has delivered once again.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar holds the NBA record with 38,387 career points.

Malone is the paradigm of the power forward from the NBA’s golden age of the late 80s and early 90s. At 6-9 and a chiseled 256 pounds, Malone has set the standard for what a power forward should be, tough and strong on the inside with enough range to knock down 20-foot jump shots.

Malone has always been in great shape, and even at age 37, this year is no different. The Mailman has missed just 7 games (out of 1208) in his career. Amazingly only three are due to injury, the other four coming on league suspensions!

In a rapidly changing league, where lanky, 6-foot-11 leapers like Minnesota's Kevin Garnett and Portland's Rasheed Wallace have replaced the bruising power forwards of his era, Malone's game has hardly tapered. This season, he is 12th in the league in scoring and rebounding, with season averages of 23.2 and 10.2. Garnett and Sacramento's Chris Webber and are the only forwards ranked higher than Malone in both categories.

Passing Chamberlain was bittersweet for Malone. Last week, he spoke of Chamberlain's huge impact on basketball and how it's too bad some records can't stay in place forever. "Wilt is one of those legends - such a legend I almost can't fathom it," long-time teammate John Stockton told reporters. "And yet I've watched Karl do it day in and day out for so many years, it's hard to believe that's where he is."

Along the way to Chamberlain's mark, Malone has been honored as league MVP twice (1997 and 1999) and guided his team to consecutive NBA Finals appearances (1997-98).

With this mark, Malone probably accomplished something that won’t be done again for a very long time. Fans in Utah recognized that immediately last night. Now’s the time for the rest of us to look back on a long and storied career, and marvel at the best power forward to ever play the game.

Article courtesy of UsFANS.com