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.
As good as he was every time you saw him play, his longevity and his consistency over the length of his career, is what really set him apart and made him so special.
Wilt Chamberlain, who once averaged 50 points in a season, and Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player of our lifetime, scored 2,000 points in only seven consecutive years. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the NBA's all-time leading scorer, never did better than two back-to-back 2,000-point seasons.
There are a lot of good scorers in the NBA today who don't reach 2,000 points because they take too many nights off. Durability is as important as scoring ability when it comes to reaching the 2,000-point plateau. And Malone had both during a 19-year career that ended in 2004. He finished with 36,928 points.
Except for the first and last years of his career, he never dipped below 20 points per game. And in 10 of his 19 seasons (18 with the Utah Jazz), he played all 82 games, a lost art among players today.
He never won a scoring title, and he never won an NBA title, yet twice he was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player and 11 times was a All-NBA First Team selection.
