Malone’s Jersey Retired, Kemp Wants Comeback
March 24, 2006 by Angelo Fernandez
Filed under NBA Basketball
The 90’s saw 2 dominant power forwards, “The Mailman” Karl Malone and the “Reignman” Shawn Kemp who saw their glory years with the Utah Jazz and the Seattle Supersonics respectively.
During halftime of the Jazz-Wizards game that took place March 23, Malone’s #32 jersey was finally retired. The Jazz lost that game 109-97 Malone played all but one season of his entire career with the Utah Jazz, forming a powerful tandem with point guard John Stockton. Malone left the game as the 2nd leading scorer of all time with 36,928 points, just behind Kareem Abdul-Jabaars 38,387 points. On the other side of the story, Shawn Kemp decided he wants to come back after a voluntary retirement in 2003 due to weight issues.
It’s interesting how 2 of the most celebrated power forwards in the 90’s are going in the oppsite direction. Malone cemented his leave from the game by his jersey retirement ceremony while Kemp wants to come back!
Ahhh….Karl Malone. Now there is one complete and consumate player. Best of all, he played Team Ball, and had one of the best ever point guards to help him in that job, the great Stockton. Karl, John Stockton, and King Charles Barkley are three of the best players to ever play the game and not win a championship ring. To think that the Spurs were willing to give some room to Karl to play with them last year, but he unselfishly decided to retire. Any game they played in would be classified as classic. Last week, I saw a CD of the Dream Team at work in the ‘92 Olympics. What a team! And John, King Charles, together with Karl Malone were there adding color and great Team Basketball to the game.