Fans often hear about the good that Jazz players' charities, including those set up by Carlos Boozer and Andrei Kirilenko, do.

The Salt Lake Tribune does an excellent job digging into the darker side of NBA athlete charities, often set up primarily to burnish the players' "brands." The Trib's Ross Siler, Tony Semerad and Michael Lewis find these foundations leak more money to administrative costs than to the causes they hope to serve.

Only about 44 cents of every dollar raised - or $14 million of the $31 million they raised - actually reached the needy. According to The Trib:

The average NBA player foundation put just 51 cents of each dollar it spent toward charitable programs, well below the 65 cents most philanthropic watchdog groups view as acceptable. Tax records show budgets are quickly eaten up by poor planning and administrative costs. . . . Up to a quarter of NBA player charities analyzed lacked even basic documentation required by the Internal Revenue Service.

The article unfortunately did not address the Karl Malone Foundation for Kids that the Utah sports icon set up. It was heralded in 1997, when The Tribune selected Malone as the newspaper's "Utahn of the Year."

The foundation allegedly stiffed at least one local business and it's primarily accomplishment seemed to be funding Malone's hobnobbing with country music performers.