50 Greatest Basketball Players Ever - 21 to 30 of the best NBA players ever

#22 Karl Malone

Malone in action against the Houston Rockets in the 1997 Western Conference Finals

It is a travesty that players of Stockton and Malone's caliber never got to win a championship despite performing at the highest level for over 15 seasons of their careers (thank you, MJ, I guess). Malone is second on the all-time list for most points scored in the regular season. He was the epitome of durability in the first 18 seasons of his career, playing all but 8 games during those seasons and playing in all 82 games of the season 10 times.

As iconic as the 90s were for the Bulls' utter dominance of the NBA, it wouldn't have been called the Golden Era of basketball if teams like the Utah Jazz and players like John Stockton and Karl Malone weren't there to push them right to the brink.

The Mailman wasn't called so without a reason. Other than Michael Jordan, Malone was the most dominant scorer of his generation - he is the only player other than MJ to average over 25 points per game for 10 straight full seasons in the league during the 20th century.

We've already talked about how the Stockton-Malone pick-and-roll has generated the most points out of any play type in NBA history. If Stockton is the perfect ballhandler for the situation, Malone came into the NBA with the physique and athleticism quintessentially required of a dominant roll man. Built like a tank weighing 250 pounds and with some of the most iconic arms in NBA history, Malone was the ultimate post-up powerhouse of his generation.

While players like Hakeem and Kevin McHale used their nifty footwork as their main weapons down low, nobody other than Shaq was able to bang down low in Malone's fashion during those times. He had a well-rounded scoring skillset - having initially come into the league as a bad free throw shooter, the Mailman improved on his percentages and was averaging over 70% conversion by his 3rd professional season, and has a career average of 74.2% despite a couple of bad initial seasons.

The oldest winner of the MVP award in NBA history, Malone was a dependable player even in his final go-around with the Lakers in the 2003-04 season. He is up there among the greatest players to play the power forward position, and his longevity of excellence beats out even the likes of Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett.