Regan: Dirk vs. Malone

I have a man crush on Dirk Nowitzki. I have closely followed his career since I was 9 years old. He is my favorite athlete in the world. As a result, everything I am about to say is 110% biased, and quite possibly irrational. The debate: Karl Malone vs. Dirk Nowitzki, both of whom are in the select list of top five power forwards of all time. It would seem you can’t go wrong when choosing between the two. However, there is an obvious choice here and assuming you have some degree of intelligence you know the obvious choice is Dirk.

Dirk first played in the NBA in 1998 trying to shed the “soft tag” that several basketball pundits and fans branded upon him. Thirteen years, a ring, a finals MVP, and a regular season MVP later it’s fair to say he’s done away with the label given to him so many years ago. His statistics are incredible: 23 points per game, almost 9 rebounds a game, 88% career free throw shooter. In addition, he boasts ten all-star selections, eleven all-NBA selections, and is the only player in NBA history to hit 150 three-pointers while also recording over 100 blocks in the same season. However, admittedly Karl Malone’s stats are also incredible, even better then Nowitzki’s in several aspects. Fortunately, there are more measures then statistics to measure a player’s greatness. (How else could Bill Russell even be considered to be in the same league as Wilt Chamberlin when Wilt’s stats were far superior?) Let me start this argument by giving you a few names: Adrian Griffin, Keith Van Horn, Erick Dampier, Desagna Diop (no idea if I spelled that one right). If you’re not a big basketball fan you probably don’t recognize those names and if you are a fan you’re probably thinking to yourself “my gosh, those guys suck, there’s middle school B-team kids that are better then they are,” and you would be 100% correct. Yet, all of those names were key players on the Mavs 2006 team that Dirk led to the finals. The only respectable players on that roster were Jason Terry, and Josh “I’m higher than a kite” Howard. A few more names you’ll most likely recognize this time: J.J. Barea, DeShawn Stevenson, Jason Terry, Jason Kidd, Tyson Chandler, Shawn Marion, Brain Cardinal, Ian Mahinmi. Along with Dirk, this is the core of this year’s title team. You might say “Oh wow JKidd, Marion, and Terry are all good players” and I am not disputing that except Kidd is currently 57 years old, Marion hasn’t been in an all-star in four years and Terry has never even been an all-star. And let me repeat two names: J.J Barea and Brian Cardinal, both played huge minutes for the Mavs throughout the year and in the playoffs. Dirk Nowitzki took both of these rosters to the NBA finals winning one.

Throughout history the NBA has been a league of stars, and the champion generally has at least two superstars. For example, Kobe/Shaq, Kobe/Pau, Pierce/Garnett/Allen, Jordan/Pippen, Magic/Kareem, and Bird/McHale just to name a few. Dirk, a little over a month ago, defied this logic when he won the title as his teams only superstar, defeating a team with three in the process. Malone on the other hand played his entire career with at least one superstar (John Stockton in Utah, Kobe and others in LA) yet never could win the title.

Karl Malone was consistently worse in the fourth quarter of games and in the playoffs. For his career he shot five percentage points worse in the playoffs then during the regular season and averaged less points per game. He didn’t relish the big moment like true superstars; he pooped himself when they came. I recently watched a Youtube clip of the final minutes of a playoff game between Dallas and Utah in which Utah led by about seven with about five minutes left. Well Dallas ended up winning by one, and in the final three minutes Malone was 1-2 from the line 0-1 from the field (he might have had a lay-up, for the sake of the argument let’s say he didn’t though) with a turnover and a missed defensive assignment that gave up the game-winning lay-up. In addition to those miscues he passed the ball like it was a hot potato several times and seemed to avoid it. Not to mention the infamous play in which he lost the ball to Jordan in the final seconds in game six of the 1998 finals, or when he missed two free throws at the end of game one in 1997, and countless other examples. Go type in Karl Malone buzzer beater on YouTube and the top results are all buzzer beaters by his teammate Stockton, one by Kobe and so on. I’m not entirely sure what that means but I feel like it must mean something. Whereas Dirk elevates his game year after year in the playoffs averaging over 25 points and 10 rebounds per game, one of four players in the history of the game to do that. Also, Dirk has hit several game winners/ buzzer beaters in career including what seemed like 37 in this years playoffs alone; to use a How I Met Your Mother reference he was legend…. Wait for it… dary LEGENDARY.

Next point, without Stockton (one of the top five point guards ever/top 40 player ever) I don’t think Malone could have been as good as he was. Stockton ran the pick and roll better then any other guard in history. He set up Malone masterfully time and time again for years. And while it’s obviously a two-man play and Malone also ran it to perfection, I think most would agree that it depends on the ball handler. While Malone could also score one on one, I just think his game depended too much on another player. On the other side of it you have Dirk, who can score on anyone at anytime, pretty much anyway he wants to, he’s honestly not guardable, you just have to hope it doesn’t go in when he shoots. And fair or not players are often judged by rings and Dirk now has one compared to the goose egg for Malone.

Dirk is clearly better than Malone. When starting a team he’s the clear choice because he simply put his team on his back time and time again. The Mavs without Dirk in 2011 were horrible going 2-7, with Dirk they were a championship team, winning with the likes of J.J Barea and Brian Cardinal as prominent players, and earning the status as my favorite team ever. 

Fell free to comment and let us know you think I am right over Devin.

Regan