Karl Malone

Some more melodrama from the NBA. MSNBC - Incident involving Kobe's wife sparked feud with Malone.

There's not much to say about this except that it might be a bit of overcompensation and that the NBA is looking more and more like there's been a merger between the daytime soaps and the WWF.

But this is about Malone and he was a big part of Salt Lake sports while I was there. The Jazz started out as nothing--they couldn't pay even their telephone bill--and have ended up a significant franchise. And Malone was a part of that to be sure.

And Malone has set records and will probably end up in the hall of fame because of them. But the thing that fans in Salt Lake had to put up with from him was the constant carping about how no one cared about what he had brought to the franchise.

Well one thing he didn't bring was a championship. If it hadn't been for a couple of free throws Malone choked on, they would have had one. The fans were peeved about it but not as peeved as they would have been in New York or Los Angeles or Philadelphia, where they would have called for his head. Jazz fan's were rather sedate in comparison.

But when they did react on one talk radio show in particular, Malone's wife called in and berated fans with the standard line, that they were ungrateful about all he had brought to the franchise and to Salt Lake. In the end, Malone couldn't take even what was rather tepid criticism comparatively speaking, so he took his ball and went home--so to speak.

You hate to see it with anybody because it is a pitiful sight, but Malone looks like he might end up going from team to team as a backup and then finally booted when he gets a year or two older.

So what does this have to do with the Ukraine? Not a thing. I just couldn't resist.