FanHouse Karl Malone

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Thursday, there are 5 days remaining.

It takes five years of retirement for a player to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Make it 10 for Dennis Rodman, who always did things differently. He did win five NBA titles.

If you think that Michael Jordan caused a commotion with an unconventional acceptance speech last month when he headlined the Class of 2009, just wait until Rodman shows up in 2010 wearing a dress and lipstick.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Friday, there are 11 days remaining.

The NBA All-Star Game every year is filled with players who never score 2,000 points in a single season.

Karl Malone did it a record 11 consecutive seasons, the most significant statistic he recorded during one of the greatest careers in NBA history.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Monday, there are 43 days remaining.

While Karl Malone's ring-chasing with the Lakers prevented the most prolific Jazz teammates from going into the Hall of Fame together, John Stockton and the Mailman have been honored as a pair before.

At the NBA's 43rd All-Star Game in Salt Lake City -- back in 1993, before the Jazz had ever made the Finals -- Stockton and Malone shared the MVP award as the West won 135-132. While home cookin' was certainly involved in Utah in Stockton's case, it was a nice touch for the media to split the award between the inseparable stars.

Larry H. Miller, the owner of the Utah Jazz, passed away Friday at the age of 64 after a long battle with diabetes. Miller had been confined to a wheelchair for some time, and just a few weeks ago had both legs amputated below the knees.

The Jazz owner is survived by his wife Gail. Miller was a somewhat controversial figure in Utah, as a result of both actions relating to the basketball team and beliefs away from the arena of sports.

Kudos to Jemele Hill of ESPN.com for writing a great column about Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Demetrius Bell and the famous father who had nothing to do with him, Karl Malone.

The Bills picked Bell in the seventh round of the NFL draft, and several media outlets reported that Bell was the son of Malone, the NBA great. But not every outlet made clear that Malone was a deadbeat dad who hadn't been there for his son, and hardly any followed up on the report, which first appeared in the Buffalo News, that Bell's mother was 13 years old when she gave birth.

That news would make Malone not just a deadbeat dad but also a criminal, and it was shocking that ESPN and the rest of the mainstream sports media completely ignored it. The Buffalo News and Los Angeles Times were the only media newspapers that reported it, and as far as I know it has never been mentioned on television.

Maybe Hill's column will change that. Bell is from all accounts a fine young man whose life story should be told. And that story isn't complete unless it includes disturbing details about his father.

Previously on FanHouse:
Offensive Tackle Demetrius Bell, Son of Deadbeat Dad Karl Malone, Drafted by Bills
Report: Mother of Buffalo Bills Player Was 12 or 13 When Karl Malone Got Her Pregnant
Why Is Mainstream Media Ignoring Statutory Rape Allegations Against Karl Malone?

When we learned that Buffalo Bills draft pick Demetrius Bell was the son of NBA legend Karl Malone, and that Malone played no part in Bell's upbringing, it was a story that made a lot of people sad. And then when the Buffalo News reported that Bell's mother was 12 or 13 when Malone got her pregnant, it was a story that made a lot of people angry.

But it's a story that the mainstream media has almost completely ignored. As far as I can tell, only two newspapers, the Buffalo News and Los Angeles Times, have made any mention of the report that Gloria Bell was 13 years old when she gave birth to Demetrius. A couple of other news sources, including BET.com, have mentioned the story, but I have been unable to find it mentioned in Sports Illustrated or on ESPN or ABC or TNT or Fox or any of the other media outlets that cover the NFL or the NBA.

Malone was 20 when Demetrius Bell was conceived. It is a very serious crime for a 20-year-old man to have sex with a 12- or 13-year-old girl. I can't say whether Malone committed that crime -- I don't have a DNA test or a birth certificate -- but no one has disputed the original Buffalo News report.

An all-time NBA great committing a sex crime that resulted in the birth of a boy who is now in the NFL would seem like the kind of thing the media would be all over. Why is this story being thoroughly ignored?

We've previously noted the story of Demetrius Bell, the offensive tackle who was drafted by the Buffalo Bills on Sunday and who spent his entire childhood without any support from his father -- NBA star Karl Malone.

But as bad as being a deadbeat dad makes Malone look, this column by Allen Wilson of the Buffalo News makes him look worse:

Bell is the son of Malone, but the Mailman had no role in Bell's success except passing along athletic genes.

The two have had very little contact during Bell's life. His mother, Gloria Bell, reportedly was only 13 years old and Malone a college sophomore at Louisiana Tech when Demetrius was born. Malone might have served jail time had her family asked the district attorney to file criminal charges.

So far, Malone has said nothing publicly about Bell. But he needs to now. Wilson's column accuses him of a very serious crime -- sex with a 12- or 13-year-old girl -- and Malone needs to explain himself.

The Buffalo Bills picked Northwestern State offensive tackle Demetrius Bell on Sunday in the seventh round of the NFL draft. Seventh-round offensive linemen rarely get any attention.

But Bell is getting a lot of attention today because of his famous father, NBA legend Karl Malone. And Bell says the genetics of a great athlete is all he ever got from that famous father.

When they met for the first time, Bell was 18, and Malone delivered a harsh message that, according to several reports, amounted to, "It's too late for me to be your father, and you'll earn your money on your own."

Charming. There is one nice piece of news in all this: Bell has become close to his half-sister Cheryl Ford, a WNBA player who is another one of Malone's children out of wedlock. Bell calls Ford the biggest influence on his football career.

The most prominent alum from Louisiana Tech showed his love for his alma mater by donating $300,000 to the school for work on the basketball arena and another $50,000 towards the volleyball team. At the same time it was announced that Karl Malone would be the Director of Basketball Promotion and Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach. Malone also announced that he will not be taking salary for the jobs.

Malone joins the staff of newly hired Tech men's basketball coach Kerry Rupp, a personal friend who was brought in on Malone's recommendation.

He said he would take no salary, and asked for no office space. "I don't want an expense account," Malone said, chuckling.

The whole athletic department is excited and looking forward to having Karl Malone as a regular presence. For the obvious reason.

"We have kids calling us asking if Karl will be there when they take a visit and we definitely plan on using that," Rupp said. "Having him involved in the program with his legendary status will be huge for us."

Malone will be front and center of massive fundraising goals and efforts.

"We're not going to leave anybody out," Malone said. "If you've got $25, you'll get a catfish plate. If you've $100,000, I might have you over to my house."

The first thing I'd do if I was the athletic director, put some really good lawyers with experience dealing with the NCAA on retainer. This is an incredibly generous and direct involvement from their biggest and one of their richest alum. The NCAA will be watching closely.

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Before the Jazz are calmly escorted out of the postseason, I wanted to get a handle on the comparisons between the tandems of Deron Williams/Carlos Boozer and John Stockton/Karl Malone. It's natural to go there, since they play the same positions in the same city, but let's not get carried away. The similarities end shortly thereafter.

I'm not saying that Williams and Boozer aren't of the same caliber. There's no reason (other than Tim Duncan, I suppose), that Williams and Boozer can't take the Jazz as far as Stockton and Malone did, if not farther.

But they're not comparable tandems. It's like trying to compare Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale to Matthew Lesko and a traffic cone. You're just not going to get anywhere.

Stockton and the Mailman were tied so closely to their pick and roll that it's almost impossible to think about Williams and Boozer reaching that same level of simpatico. It was almost as if Stockton was one of Malone's appendages (don't think too hard about that). No two teammates have ever been so closely associated with each other, though Joe Montana and Jerry Rice are probably come closest.