Averages after turning 40: 13.2 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 3.9 apg, 1.2 spg, 0.5 bpg, 48.3 FG% in 42 games

One of the all-time great power forwards in league history, Karl Malone only played in 42 games after turning 40 due to a knee injury he suffered during his final season that forced him to miss nearly half of his last campaign.

Malone wasn’t quite the same after the injury (the Mailman averaged 14.5 points and 9.9 rebounds on 50.9 percent shooting in 23 games before the injury in 2003-04 but just 12.1 points and 7.8 rebounds on 44.8 percent shooting in 18 games after the injury), which ultimately meant his bid to win a championship with the Lakers before retiring didn’t come to fruition.

Still, Malone was pretty productive after turning 40 and probably could have put up even better numbers had he chosen to finish out his career with the Utah Jazz rather than ring chase on a loaded Laker team. Lest we forget, in Malone’s final season in Utah, his age-39 campaign of 2002-03, the Hall-of-Famer put up 20.6 points, 7.8 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.7 steals over 81 appearances, monstrous numbers for a 39-year-old in the NBA.

We did get one vintage Malone performance after he turned 40. It came in Game 4 of the Lakers’ first-round matchup against the Houston Rockets with the series sitting at two games to one in favor of Los Angeles, and with the Rockets hosting Game 4.

Malone dropped 30 points (11-for-17 shooting) to lead Los Angeles in scoring that day to go with 13 rebounds and three steals in a 92-88 win that pretty much wrapped up the series for the Lakers.

Some of what went wrong in Malone’s lone season with the Lakers was of his own doing. In December of that year, Malone is said to have made inappropriate comments to Bryant’s wife, Vanessa Bryant, which Bryant, obviously, was none too happy about:

The Kobe Bryant-Karl Malone feud has turned personal, with Bryant accusing Malone of making a pass at his wife at a Lakers game. Rob Pelinka, the agent for Bryant, told ESPN.com on Sunday night that Malone made “several inappropriate comments” to Bryant’s wife, Vanessa, on Nov. 23 at a Los Angeles Lakers home game against the Milwaukee Bucks. “Kobe and Karl had a true friendship, much more than teammates,” Pelinka said. “Their wives are quite friendly as well. Kobe has told me that he feels very hurt and betrayed by what has happened.”

Malone responded by saying he didn’t want to star in “another Bryant soap opera” (yikes!), with Bryant ultimately telling the media:

Bryant said to reporters before Sunday night’s game against Orlando, “The comments that [Malone] said, I don’t know any man in this room that wouldn’t be upset about that. The past month, myself, my wife, [Malone’s wife] Kay, we’ve had fun together. We’ve been out to their house, just joking around, giving each other a hard time, just clowning, being sarcastic with one another, baby-sitting kids and all that.” Asked if there could have been a misunderstanding, Bryant said, “What he said is what he said. I believe in my heart that it wasn’t a misunderstanding. My wife wasn’t going to stand for it. She felt uncomfortable being around him to the point that she felt she had to call his wife and tell her.”

How’s that for team chemistry? In hindsight, it’s borderline miraculous that that Lakers team didn’t blow up even sooner.

Regardless, from a basketball perspective, Malone’s body failing him past 40 isn’t surprising (he was also hobbled during the ’04 Finals, even missing the decisive Game 5 defeat to the Detroit Pistons due to his knee) considering the mileage he had on him by that point. For what it’s worth, Malone was still good enough as a player past 40 to warrant attention as a free agent from the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks that following offseason before he retired.