Don't fuck with the Moses.
In an odd coincidence of timing, Moses Malone passed away this weekend, just a couple weeks after Darryl Dawkins, the man who he replaced on the Philadelphia 76ers. Darryl could never get the Sixers to the Promised Land; Moses did it his first year there, leading his team to a championship and finally getting Dr. J his long-overdue ring.
Unlike the colorful Chocolate Thunder, Moses was all business on the court. He played with a perpetual scowl, and always looked like someone you definitely did not want to mess with. But he seems to have been a good guy off the court; Charles Barkley, for one, credits Moses with helping him learn how to be a professional.
Moses is generally considered the best offensive rebounder ever to play; he would often get two, three, or four on a given possession, and eventually put the ball in the basket. He was sometimes accused of padding his stats by missing on purpose, but it’s hard to say how true that was. What we do know for sure is that he was relentless on the boards. His philosophy of rebounding? “I goes to the rack.”
Moses was a man of few words, but managed to express a lot nonetheless. Now he is off to the Great All-Star Team in the Sky, allowing Darryl Dawkins to slide over to power forward.
