lunch in sacramento

note: during august, bang! will publish friday editions only.

in the spring of 1983, moses malone was asked how the playoffs would go and answered in three syllables.

“fo, fo, fo,” malone said.

the word he was reaching for was four. four wins, four wins, four wins, three rounds without a single loss, twelve and zero. he was wrong by one game. philadelphia went twelve and one, swept the lakers in the finals, and somebody at the jeweller’s had to decide what to do about a prediction that had missed. the rings were made with the correction inside them. fo, fi, fo.

that is the most honest object this franchise owns. philadelphia’s only championship in the last forty-three years is commemorated by a boast with the error left showing, worn on the hands of the men who nearly made it true.

malone had arrived the previous september from houston, where six seasons had never produced more than forty-nine wins and where he had finished the summer of 1982 as a most valuable player without a contract.

“i bet this is the first time an mvp was on unemployment,” malone said when he collected the award.

philadelphia signed him to an offer sheet worth $13.2 million over six years. the rockets matched it on the fifteenth of september and then traded him anyway, for caldwell jones and a first-round pick. the sixers went sixty-five and seventeen. malone won a third most valuable player award. erving, malone, bobby jones, maurice cheeks, andrew toney. twelve wins and one loss in the postseason. julius erving had been to three finals in six years and lost all of them. that spring he got the only ring of his career. so did malone.

twenty years later, on the twenty-ninth of october 2003, nike flew moses malone out to sacramento to have lunch with an eighteen-year-old.

that night the boy played the first game of his professional life at arco arena. twenty-five points, nine assists, six rebounds, four steals, in a loss to the kings. malone was in the building. he had also been cast that year in the commercial that introduced the boy to america. malone stood in a church beside jerry west and erving and george gervin, while a choir sang about the way the child moved the ball.

philadelphia had already had a look at him. as a high school junior he travelled with st. vincent-st. mary to play a road game against strawberry mansion at the palestra, the old gym on the university of pennsylvania campus.

the coincidence is a pleasant thing to hold for an afternoon. it is also the top layer of something older and less charming. philadelphia has never once produced the man who finished the job. it has bought him, every time, and the price moved in one direction for seventy-eight years until this month, when it fell off a table.