Moses Malone, the late Hall of Famer, seldom had a problem finding space for himself during his two-decade run as one of pro basketball's most bruising centers.
That is not the case, however, in filmmaker Dan Klores’ newly released history of the game, Basketball: A Love Story.
The series, which began Oct. 9 on ESPN, encompasses 20 hours over 10 weekly installments. It is not, thankfully, a linear history of hoops, beginning with Dr. Naismith in the Springfield Y and ending with Steph Curry at the arc in Oracle; rather it consists of 62 short stories, pieced together in an eye-catching crazyquilt.
Yet there wasn't room for Moses’ tale, and that of the 76ers’ 1982-83 championship team.
“I hated to lose that,” Klores told me in a phone interview last week. “It came down to just time.”
Klores, who spent four and a half years on this project, said ESPN granted him 106 minutes in every 120-minute episode, with the rest devoted to commercials. He usually came in some 90 seconds under his allotment, he added, but faced some difficult decisions when the credits at the end of the final episode timed out at a staggering six and a half minutes in length.
“And I didn’t care who they were; you have to give people that respect, whether they’re just someone who gets you a hotel or is kind to you along the way,” Klores said. “I had to cut two stories for time, and one was Moses.”
The other tale, a continuation of the Wilt Chamberlain-Bill Russell saga begun earlier in the series, was not quite as tough a cut. But Moses’ story, which includes mention of his jump from Petersburg (Va.) High School to the ABA, was different.
Which is not to say the Sixers aren’t well-represented in the film. There’s a deconstruction of their loss to Portland in the ‘77 Finals, complete with the Maurice Lucas-Darryl Dawkins fight and the late Jack Ramsay’s assertion that his Blazers were out to exploit Julius Erving’s defense (which Dr. J refutes). There’s a discussion of Allen Iverson’s crossover move (though not an admission on AI’s part that he learned the move from a Georgetown walk-on named Dean Berry). And there’s Wilt.
But Moses? Not so much.
Klores’ staff shared the nine-minute, 32-second video snippet with me, but I cannot link it because, Klores said, the footage has not been cleared. Suffice it to say that it breaks little new ground for Sixers fans of a certain age, who saw their team lose three times in the Finals between 1977 and ‘82. Then Moses arrived, giving them the inside presence they so sorely lacked. As a result they breezed to the ‘83 title, losing just one of the 13 playoff games and nearly fulfilling Malone’s “fo’, fo’, fo’ ” prophecy.
In the piece Malone, who died in 2015 at age 60, says many of the same things he said in September 1982, after the Sixers acquired him in a trade with Houston (following their signing of the soon-to-be three-time MVP to an offer sheet for the then-staggering sum of $13.2 million over six years).
Back then he was introduced to reporters in a nondescript utility room deep in the bowels of Veterans Stadium, when the Sixers made the ill-considered decision to upstage a late-season Phillies game. This time he was one of 165 people interviewed for Klores’ film (though not by Klores himself; he said he conducted 122 of the interviews, but can’t remember which member of his team spoke with Moses).
As was the case 36 years ago, Malone said it was Erving’s team, and he was just along for the ride.
Everybody knew better. And while there were those who viewed that title as just desserts for the elegant, ambassadorial (and oft-unfulfilled) Dr. J, Klores does not agree.
“I do look on it as Moses’ championship,” he said. “I’m certainly not taking anything away from Julius Erving, but they don’t win that title if it’s not for Moses Malone. It’s not a secret. Nor do they win that title if Billy Cunningham isn’t the coach.”
True, on both counts. Cunningham, as hard-driving on the bench as he had been during his Hall of Fame playing career, was drained by the time the Sixers swept the Lakers in the Finals. Moses, by contrast, seemed energized by his pursuit -- of rebounds (particularly at the offensive end) and his only pro title.
That was one of six seasons in which he topped the league in rebounding, and one of nine times he led the pack in offensive boards (including once in the ABA). He finished his long career with 17,834 rebounds, third-most all time, and averaged 12.3 a game.
Years ago, then-Philadelphia Daily News columnist John Schulian related a tale of Moses’ appearance on “Red on Roundball,” a halftime segment on nationally televised games in which legendary Celtics executive Red Auerbach discussed various aspects of the game. In Schulian’s telling, Auerbach went on and on about all the things that went into offensive rebounding, as Malone stood by.
Finally Auerbach turned to Moses.
“Tell us, Moses,” he said, “how do you do what you do?”
“I turn,” he said, “and I go to the rack.”
Hey, it’s harder than it sounds.
“John Wooden’s theory, and Billy Packer said the same thing, was the first rule to rebounding is that you need to understand that every shot will miss,” said Klores, who used to coach AAU ball in New York City. “That’s it. Then you go to the ferociousness of Moses Malone.”
That was no small part of the equation. Retired NBA center Danny Schayes (son of Dolph, the late Hall of Famer) once told me that while Moses was far from an elegant shooter or ball-handler, he was “coming at you all the time,” and it was all anybody could do to match his work rate.
Schayes, like many of his contemporaries, believes there were times Malone missed on purpose to pad his stats. He also believes Moses set screens for his teammates that were “just good enough to get you open, but not good enough to get you open for a shot” -- leaving the receiver with no choice but to dump the ball to Malone in the low post.
None of that, however, diminishes how good he was at turning and going to the rack -- something Klores now views as a lost art.
“The idea now of anyone following up their shot,” he said, “I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone since (John) Havlicek do that. … No one follows up their shot.”
Even so, Moses is something of a forgotten great. He was never big on interviews, never had much need for the spotlight.
It is left to his peers to remember him. At one point in the film, Klores said, an old-timer relates how when retired guys get together, they talk about which player, active or otherwise, they would call upon to perform a singular task. You need a free throw, for instance, you probably turn to Rick Barry.
“But if you needed one offensive rebound, one guy in the history of basketball to go to the rack and snatch that ball, it has to be Moses Malone, right?” Klores said. “It has to be Moses Malone.”
Has to be. Which is why his absence from this project is so difficult to accept. For the director, and everybody else.
