Author Paul Knepper discusses Malone’s life, career, and new biography

I had the pleasure of talking to Paul Knepper, author of the soon-to-be-released biography on Moses Malone, entitled Moses Malone: The Life of a Basketball Prophet.

Q: What intrigued you about Moses that you wanted to write his biography? 

A: The idea started 10 to 12 years ago. I’m a huge basketball fan. I guess you could call me an amateur historian of the game, and it struck me once that I know relatively nothing about Moses Malone. And every other player of his caliber, I feel I know a good deal about, but I knew nothing about Moses.

And I actually thought to myself, “I’m going to get a book about Moses and read about him,” and I was surprised to learn there was no book about Moses. And I kind of tucked that away, and years later it kind of popped in my head again, and I said, ‘Let me read a little more about him.’

And I thought this guy had a fascinating career and life, and I think there’s a really good book here.

Q: Moses was the first player to make the jump from high school to the pros. How confident was he at the time that he could hold his own as a 19-year-old? 

A: Yeah, he was very confident. He was always very confident. When he was 14 years old, he wrote on a piece of paper and tucked it into his family Bible that he was going to be the best player in the country by his junior year in high school, and he basically accomplished that.

And then in his junior year in high school, he put another note in the Bible saying I’m going to be the first player to go straight from high school to the pros. 

Q: When the Sixers acquired Moses in 1982, what was the level of confidence among the players and within the organization from those you spoke to that it would result in winning the championship that season? 

A: It was huge. They had been so close. They had gone to the Finals three times in the previous six years. They had a ton of talent on those teams. What happened is they kept losing to teams with great centers. In 1980 and 1982, they lost to Kareem, and in 1977, they lost to Bill Walton. They also lost to the Celtics with Robert Parish.

Darryl Dawkins was a decent center, but he wasn’t a great center, so they felt like that was the difference. You take a team that won close to 60 games and went to the Finals the previous year, and then you add the MVP to that roster, it injected them with great confidence.

There’s a great line from Pat Riley that I put in the book. He said that the addition of Moses to the Sixers was as big a psychological boost as it was a basketball boost. 

Q: What was the best quote you got from a player in regards to battling Moses on the boards?

A: Jack Sikma said it was like trying to box out an octopus.

Q: What would you like us to know about Moses the person? 

A: The most common word I heard about Moses is relentless. I think the second most common adjective I heard was misunderstood. Moses was very gruff with the media.

He, for a number of reasons, didn’t like dealing with the media, didn’t want to deal with the media, and could be flat out rude to the media and was often portrayed as such.

But the people who knew him would tell you, one, he was very intelligent, which was very contrary to the way he was perceived, and he had a great personality and great sense of humor, which people never really got to see. 

The other thing I loved learning about Moses was his humility. Here’s a guy who won three MVP Awards, was the best player in the league at one time, and everyone you talk to said he never acted like it.

He never expected special attention, special perks. I talked to Paul Mokeski, and he said he couldn’t believe the time and attention Moses paid to him as a second-round draft pick trying to make the team. 

Moses was very charitable. He gave a lot of money to a lot of people and causes, but was insistent that his name was never associated with it. One cool thing he did was that he would regularly be offered a ton of money to appear at a charity golf tournament, where he got paid as much as $20,000.

And Moses, without fail, would say, I’m going to bring three other former players — who he knew were struggling financially — and tell the organizers to pay them $5,000 each. 

And the story I ended the book with says a lot about Moses. The Sixers wanted to retire his jersey, and he wasn’t really into it. He thought all his teammates should be recognized.

When they finally retired his jersey after his passing, the banner with his number on it had the names of every teammate he had in Philadelphia stitched on the outside of it.

That was his condition for his number being retired. He wanted every one of his teammates to be up there with him. I think that says a lot about the teammate he was.

You can follow Paul Knepper on X at @paulieknep

Andy Roth has covered the NBA for various outlets since 1979. Follow him @arhooptalk