Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS

Paul Knepper, author of ⁠Moses Malone: The Life of a Basketball Prophet⁠, joins the show. Enjoy!

Here are some highlights –

7:02-7:42: “He realized very early on that these people… were trying to get something out of him. He was cautious and kind of withdrawn before that, and I think that maybe that experience made him add even another layer between him and the outside world or certainly between him and people that he didn’t know well and people that could potentially take advantage of him. So it led him to be very protective in that way going forward.”  

14:22-15:07: “It’s always hard to go straight from high school to pros. … I think in certain ways it was harder for Moses as the first. I think he faced tremendous backlash because of that, but also there was no infrastructure in place. There was a lot less money in professional basketball in general then, certainly in the ABA. It was a head coach, an assistant coach, and that was it; they didn’t have 10 coaches who could kinda babysit him and take care of him and make sure that he’s doing his laundry and paying his bills and all that. The other thing I think people forget is that very few people were even leaving college early at that time.”

19:38-20:21: “If you think of more recently maybe a comparison would be a Tim Duncan, who also had no flash to his game. He was better with the media in that I don’t think he was as standoffish, but he didn’t really give the media anything either. … It was almost like on the court and off the court there was no personality to him, and I think that’s how a lot of people saw Moses. Moses played with a scowl on his face. I always say Michael Jordan and Kobe also played with scowls on their face, but then they’d go into the interview room and they’d flash that million-dollar smile and it was like you saw a different side of them; Moses just never gave you that.”    

33:20-34:36: “The Rockets came to the city at the beginning of the decade, and there really was no significant history of professional basketball there, and there was a lot of skepticism as to whether the team would even make it. … But I think there was an excitement in the air. There was a belief that ‘we have something here,’ and ‘we’re building something here’ and the city is growing, and in comes Moses and … finally he kinda feels safe and comfortable and home and his career takes off, like a rocket. And simultaneously he kind of gives real grounding to the franchise.” 

36:11-36:45: “When Moses signed with Philly in ’82, there was a lot of concern about whether they -him and Doc[tor J] could coexist ‘cuz they were the two previous MVP winners. And there was the whole ‘Well, there’s only one ball, and you’ve got two dominant players; how is this gonna work?’ And they both had big egos in their own way. But Moses really set the tone for that from Day 1. He said, ‘This is Doc’s team. I’m just here to help. I’m just here to help Doc win a championship.’”  

39:50-40:05: “He was a wonderful father figure to many, but not necessarily a good father. And he was a kind and gentle man who may or may not have beaten his wife. And so how do you reconcile that?”  

44:37-44:48: “What I really admired about Moses [was] he didn’t give a damn what anybody else said, what anybody else did, what was popular, what was cool. He had his own moral compass.”

If interested, Moses Malone is available for purchase⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, among other places.

Paul’s previous OTNB appearance, in which we discussed his first book, can be found here.

Subscribe to, rate and review On the NBA Beat on Apple Podcasts.

Follow On the NBA Beat and your hosts Aaron Fischman and Loren Lee Chen on X or BlueSky.

Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.