[FOXSPORTS] 'Malone Majorly Overrated'

Wasn't that the year just after he got back from baseball and haven't fully adjusted yet?

 

Clutch, luck (of lack thereof) is always involved in the playoffs.
We got two championships rings and shouldn't complain too much. Think about about the Kings. They almost won the game 6 of WCF in 2002. Had the refs made fair calls, they'd won the game in LA.

The next year, they were favored to win it all, but Webber went down in the playoffs with the Mavs, and the Mavs went on to win the series 4:3.

Last year, the Wolves were #1 seed in the West, but Cassell went down prior to the WCF, and the Wolves lost the series to the Lakers.

Last year, the Lakers were favored to win the NBA Championships after they got there, but Malone went down(although this might not be the deciding factor), and the Lakers lost to the Pistons.

The NBA is full of luck factors. Even the Jazz fans complain they got robbed by the refs in game 6 of the NBA championship games with the Bulls in 1998. We got our rings, so be happy.

 

That's a bit of mythology propagated by his PR machine.

He adjusted just fine and was scoring 30 ppg in the playoffs. Hell he was scoring in the 50's in the regular season. He didn't look to Rusty at all (nor should he have been, he was working out regularly during his "retirement").

The problem was that the Bulls , with no Horace Grant and pre-Rodman - had zero inside game and not much rebounding , which is why Orlando, which had Shaq and Horace Grant - mauled the Bulls inside in the playoffs. It wasn't even close, and it wasn't because Michael was tired - unless he was planning on guarding Shaq.

 

Wave off Samaki Walker's halftime 3, and there wouldn't have even been a game 6 to be stolen.

Samaki Walker is the man. Anybody who can score points when it isn't even during the game desverves a fat contract. think about it, we could send him out after the fourth quarter buzzer and let him shoot a few 3s.

 

Malone had his chance to win when Jordan was out but the Dream along with the rest of the guys beat the Jazz convincingly.
He never was a clutch player.

 

No, the Jazzholes won two games. Rox were up 2-1 in the series, and about 10pts in the 2nd quarter of game4, at home, when Barkley got hurt.

We still could've won game4 though, but I felt Rudy's front court substitution was not good, tired out the Dream and Willis, and we lost game 4 in a close one. Game5 in Utah was just depressing.

 

I agree. I will grudgingly admit he was a very very good player. I think he could have been a legendary player instead of a d**chebag. And I did like the article, though I think it goes into hyperbole a little bit.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but CLUTCH was not talking about the year (1997) we made it to the conference finals (and lost 2-4 vs. Utah)!
He was referring to the 1998 playoffs. We played Utah in the first round (best-of-five) and lost 2-3 (after being up 2-1).

Fot those of you who don't remember
http://www.nba.com/rockets/history/history.html#23

 

rosen is an idiot and goes overboard but at least someone in the media isnt afraid to at least point out the major deficies in this jazzhole's game. he is easily at top 5 pf of all time but i am damn happy he retired without a ring

 

This is the way I look at it, when Hakeem, D. Robinson, Barkley, and even Payton and Kemp were at their best, the Utah teams had no chance of getting to the Finals.

 

The article goes overboard by discussing Karl's personal life. I don't really care what an athlete does off the court as long as he isn't killing anyone, breaking the law, etc. I pay to watch them play ball, and that's it.

With that being said, Malone is definately not the greatest PF ever. To be the "greatest", you have to win. Yes, I know there are situations where you aren't on the best team and you lose (i.e. Marino), but that is not the case with Malone. He played on good teams, with a HOF point guard for his entire career (not many can say that) and his teams lost because he failed to make clutch plays. Actually, he choked on many an occassion (missing critical freebies in the Finals, getting stripped by MJ in the Finals). THE MAN IS JUST NOT A CLUTCH PLAYER. If the game is on the line, I would not want him on my squad. I'll take Duncan instead...

 

Before I read the article I thought that he would mention Malone playing with Stockton for most of his career.

I didn't get to watch him very much in his prime, so maybe you guys can help me out. Did he have a decent post up game at any time? The only move I remember him making was the catch and shoot fadeaway jumper. All the other times he scored he either ran faster down the court than his man for a layup, or got to the line on really lame flops and other tricks. The pick and roll was their favorite play, but I have to wonder just how good he would have been if he didn't have the best pure point of all time spoon feeding him for 15 years.

 

Course the flip side of that argument is always, "would John Stockton have been the best pure point guard of all time if he didn't have Malone to take the pressure off him every night". As opposed to, say, Mark Jackson, who was a good passer but never quite reached stardom.

Chicken or the egg, and we'll never know.

(or to take it a step further, we never saw Stockton play under anyone but Sloan, who has a reputation for making players look better than they are. While Malone was decent, he wasn't all that impressive on the Lakers... so maybe Stockton and Malone just got lucky playing under Sloan their entire careers...)

 

Malone had a MONSTER inside game back then (with elbows sticking out, of course) when he was younger because he was so much stronger than all the other power forwards, but when he got old, he became a "point forward" who relied on his fade-away more than inside moves. That in fact, prolonged his playing career for about 5 years, because when you get older, your body simply can't take the pounding anymore downlow.

That brings up another point. Yao Ming will have a relatively long NBA career, because when he gets older, he can still rely on his jump shots to be a very effective player.

Shaq, on the other hand, is going downhill very fast. I don't think he can be a force anymore two years down the road. His aging body won't take his style of playing when he's in his mid-30's. But, he won't care because he's got his rings and he's got his money. He can call it quit tomorrow and be considered one of the greatest centers of all time.

 

One of my favorite Barkley quotes was when the Rockets went up 2-1, and had a chance to possibly close out the Jazz in game 4, Charles said something to the extent of "We were supposed to be the rabbits in this series, hunted down by the defending western conference champs. Now, the rabbit's got the gun."

Of course, like so many other times in his career, bad stuff happened and Chuck had to eat his words (sample, "butt kicking incorporated"). We just were no match without Charles, and Clyde had a John-Starks-in-game-7 shooting night in game 5, to end the season.

 

I don't like that article. The same sort of a-hole who wrote that article will turn around and write up why Yao is a piece of crap, why T-Mac has never been worth anything, etc.

Malone: despicable; clothes-lined opponents; half-r****ded; narcissistic; must have paid off refs to get away with things he did.....

....but for all that, he never missed games until he became a Faker, he was in superb condition (just ask him), he averaged about 4 or 5 assists a game....you could do worse.

He was a dirty player, though. Did I say dirty? I meant, G.D. filthy.