So I finally find a Starbucks on the way out of town - Salt Lake will never be considered a first-rate city with such ill-spaced coffee - and I hear this mock airport announcement:
"Would Karl Malone please report to the Delta Center."Loud laughter follows.
"Mr. Malone, would you please claim your jump shot at baggage carousel 3."
Har, har, har.
These are two middle-aged Utahns getting a good chuckle at the Mailman's expense, making departure jokes, chortling over their grande lattes. How quickly - as Dennis Rodman will show - the worm can turn.
"Karl Malone, please call 911. This is an emergency."
Snicker, snicker.
Malone is Mr. Utah, in a way that not even the Osmonds, Orrin Hatch or Rush Limbaugh are, and when he is shooting 14 of 41 his community notices.
"He shot 14 of 42 in the first two games last year," an airport eavesdropper lets me know during a discussion I am having with friends.
I'll take his word for it. Any place that keeps track of that sort of thing needs a better explanation than Malone is offering. And that explanation is none.
No blame. No shame.
Worse, Malone is allowing Rodman to look better than it is constitutionally possible for Rodman to look.
I check my notes on Rodman in Game 2 and this is what I see: "Dennis could be charged with sedition and found guilty in any court on any planet he may in-hab-it."
Just about then, I note, Rodman hits the buzzer-beater from the foul line to tie the game and the Bulls take it from there.
"That (Rodman's shot) wouldn't be our first option," Phil Jackson said.
Subsequently, Rodman, who had no rebounds in the first half, pulls down nine in the second, most of them offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter.
Now Rodman is taking credit for saving the Bulls.
"If they (the officials) let me play, I can guard Karl any day of the week," Rodman boasts.
So here is where Malone has an obligation to help out, not just his team, but the rest of us who consider Rodman the anti-hoops.
"In life, if you ever wanted to have an excuse, this would be the time," Malone said. "But I don't have any."
Clearly, that is the wrong thing to say, the wrong position to take. Malone must know what is wrong. He just isn't letting us know.
Phlegmaticism is not noble, it is only maddening. Everyone wants an excuse. If no excuses are given, guys make them up for you in airport coffee bars.
Without excuses, the world is left to wonder is it Karl Malone or is it Dennis Rodman? By being stoic and silent, Malone is allowing Rodman to take the credit, thereby authenticating Rodman's bi-zarre-ness and his flouting of procedure.
Malone owes it not only to Utah but to the League of Decency to come up with some sort of acceptable alibi.
He is free to choose from any of the following:
It Was Something I Ate: Best to go with mixing fish and dairy. "I shouldn't have had the whipped cream on my halibut," is a keeper.
This one might work better were it not for the little matter of Michael Jordan using it last year and playing the transcendent game of his life while trying to keep anchovies down.
I Left My Shot in My Other Suit and I Sent My Suit to the Cleaners: The only problem, of course, is that Malone does not wear a suit and if he did, he would clean it himself by beating it against a rock, which is not a bad description of his jumper, at that.
I Got Something in My Eye: Sure, Dennis Rodman. And on behalf of art lovers and optometrists everywhere, sympathy.
The Dog Ate My Jump Shot: This one has worked for generations. I'd go with that. And make the dog a dingo. They'll eat anything rotten.