text: The Pistons were a great team that year (2004), but the Lakers had a good chance to beat them with the team they had.... But Malone, of all people, was injured in the finals and was ineffective.\n\nMalone took just a bit of a salary cut in 2004, down to $1.5 million (after making over $19 million - that's nineteen million - in 2003).\n\nI probably would have done the same thing as Malone. Karl Malone had already made over $100 million in his career, and the only other thing he wanted was a championship. It almost worked.\n\nThe amazing thing about his injury is that, in his 19 year career, he only missed 9 games, and I think 2 or 3 of those were because of suspensions, not injuries.  \n\nHe picked the wrong time to get hurt, but even though the Lakers tried to assemble "the greatest team ever" that year, the Pistons were at the top of their game by the time the finals arrived, and they deserved to win it all.\n\nThat year, the Lakers were seemingly able to come back from any defecit (they in fact overcame a huge defecit in game 2 of the finals), and this caused them to sometimes become complacent, which you can NOT afford to to against a team as defensively strong as the Pistons. (This was the year that the Lakers came from way down to beat the Spurs in one of the playoff games, when Derek Fisher threw in that off balance jumper with less than a second left to win the game).\n\nBut to literally answer your question, I wouldn't say Malone got 'burned' by leaving the Jazz, as the Jazz weren't going to win it all anyway... the Lakers appeared to be his best shot. Acquiring Gary Payton and Malone, to join Kobe and Shaq, the Lakers did in fact have 4 Hall of Famers on the floor... and Malone was not interested in his personal stats (had he stayed in Utah, he might have become the NBA's all time leading scorer, rather than remaining 2nd behind Kareem Abdul Jabbar). He just wanted a ring.\n\nBut even though the Lakers had a good record that year (56-26, they started the season at 18-3, then lost 2 in a row, they were 20-5 at one point) they were still a bit inconsistent, as Gary Payton never fully adjusted to playing the triangle offense.\n\nKarl Malone might have been the hardest working player in the history of the NBA, not to mention being the 2nd most durable after Wilt Chamberlain. I'm sure if he had to do it again, he would make the same decision.