Utah Jazz: Karl Malone to be praised with Dream Team mates

SALT LAKE CITY — Karl Malone thought the Hall of Fame should have bent the rules for him last year.

As it turned out, The Mailman did not receive a special invitation to be enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame a year early to allow him to enter with Utah Jazz inductees John Stockton and Jerry Sloan in 2009.

"In my little crazy world," Malone said, "I thought maybe they would make an exception."

Even though he had to wait the full five years after retirement to become eligible to be nominated like all other players, Malone will at least get a chance to enter the Hall of Fame with his favorite passer in 2010.

The Jazz legends will both be immortalized in the hoops haven together Friday night along with the rest of their teammates from the original Dream Team. The U.S. men's basketball team, which clobbered all foes en route to the 1992 Olympic gold medal in Barcelona, Spain, is one of two teams that will be enshrined.

Malone still believes the Hall of Fame missed out on a marketing opportunity to have three guys from the same NBA organization enter together. In his mind, organizers could've easily rationalized the exception by saying, "We thought it would only be the right thing to do if Karl and John went in together."

That, of course, would have been the case had Malone retired with Stockton in 2003 instead of pursuing his NBA championship dreams the following season with the Los Angeles Lakers.

That extra year, he believes, shouldn't matter.

"And it wouldn't have been corny," Malone added. "That, right there, would have been awesome."

Coincidentally, that is the same description Malone used when speaking about joining Stockton and Sloan in the Hall of Fame as an individual. He is quite proud the Jazz have two players and a coach enter in their first year of eligibility in two years. He thought it would've been a historical hoops moment.

"To me," he said, "it's going to be awesome. ... That's pretty special."

Malone is honored but less stoked about going into the Hall of Fame with his first gold-medal-winning Olympic team.

"The Dream Team thing will be OK," Malone said, "but ... that was a team."

And what a team it was.

The high-powered Americans, tired of losing Olympic glory with amateurs, sent the most star-studded squad in basketball history to reclaim gold after the IOC changed a rule to allow professionals to join the Games.