NBA teams and the league's crop of summer free agents are barred by collective bargaining agreement rules from negotiating with each other until July 1. But that does not preclude them from using the media to talk about, or even to, each other.

With a week to go before the formal negotiating period opens, that very reality is unfolding in Utah.

Karl Malone seems to have a lot to say, including what it will take to make him stay with the only pro franchise he has ever known. Much of it has been heard before, though ? and still none of it definitively answers the question of whether or not he really wants to return for a 19th season with the Jazz.