NBA: The best rebounder of all time from every NBA team

Best rebounder in Utah Jazz history: Karl Malone

There was a stretch between 1984 and 2004, where the Utah Jazz qualified for the playoffs each season. For most of that 30-year run, the central figures were Basketball Hall of Famers John Stockton and Karl Malone.

Malone was selected 13th overall in the 1985 NBA Draft and developed a chemistry with Stockton, who was taken 16th overall the previous year. That duo proved to be fruitful for the Jazz, as they reached the NBA finals in 1997 and 1998 thanks mostly to Stockton and Malone’s efforts. Because of that longstanding partnership, Malone and Stockton’s legacies will always be intertwined.

Thanks to 19 seasons of consistent production, Malone is the NBA’s second all-time leading scorer and eighth all-time leading rebounder. So naturally, Malone also holds the top spots as the Jazz’s all-time leading offensive, defensive and overall rebounder, while also ranking third all-time on the Utah rebounds per game leaderboard.

That tends to happen when you go nine straight seasons averaging at least 10 boards per game, while never tallying fewer than 7.8 in a single campaign. His rate stats are pretty good, too. Malone ranks 10th on Utah’s all-time list for overall rebounding percentage and he is seventh in defensive rebounding rate.

Malone’s high-level consistency on the glass and on the offensive block played a big role in him winning two NBA MVP trophies and earning 14 All-NBA selections. Of course, like many players of his era, being that he didn’t win a championship playing during the same time as Michael Jordan — and Olajuwon for that matter — is often held against him.

But that should detract from Malone’s dependability. Hence why he’s known as “The Mailman”.