The 2023 NBA All-Star weekend is taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the NBA made it a point to bring back Jazz legend Karl Malone to be one of the faces of the weekend and serve as a judge at Saturday’s Slam Dunk contest.
But that decision has been widely criticized given Malone’s sketchy off-court past.
It was first reported more than 25 years ago that when Malone was a 20-year old college student he had impregnated a 13-year-old girl in 1983, and had spent years denying his son — former NFL offensive lineman Demetress Bell — before finally developing a relationship with him.
Malone never faced charges for it, and it has largely been swept under the rug and ignored by the Jazz and the NBA. The fact that he was involved in one of the NBA’s marquee events just further illustrated how much the league has overlooked it.
It was not, however, ignored by a large segment of the media covering the All-Star weekend, and the NBA has faced some intense criticism while Malone refused to talk about his past or his personal life.
Gordon Monson of the Salt Lake Tribune wrote a scathing column on the subject after Malone refused to speak to him, and any reporters while Monson was present, and for continuing to run from his past and take accountability.
Rolling Stone’s Andre Gee wrote that the NBA shouldn’t have had the “creepy” (their words) Malone involved and how he was a bad ambassador for the league.
Bomani Jones also had harsh words for the league.
