The Prophet Moses
 |
| The 1981 NBA Finals. |
Those among us who consider themselves good, God-fearing
Christians are no doubt familiar with what is to come in this section. As such, I would like to recommend that they
skip this section and spend the time elsewhere.
Perhaps they can work on their God-fearing, a skill that doubtless needs
constant training.
For those that remain, this section is of vital
importance. There have only been three
men in history to appear in both the Bible and in the NBA, and each of them
were prophets in their own way. There
was Yeshua, the man who would die for our sins before being resurrected as an
able stretch four for the Detroit Pistons under the guise of “Luigi Datome.” There was King David Wingate, who slay the
mighty Goliath and then kind of coasted through his basketball years if we’re
being honest. And then there was Moses.
 |
| This is in the Bible. |
Moses’ people did not respect him at first. Indeed, he was just an orphan boy, set adrift
upon the Nile only to aptly rebound from this deadly fate to find himself the
adopted son of the pharaoh. He was found
bobbing down the river by Pharaoh’s daughter, who just couldn’t get enough of
his chubby little 6’5” body. After his
daughter held her breath as long as she could, Pharaoh agreed to adopt the boy,
naming him “Moses” because that was what was inscribed on the wicker basket
they found him in.
That the pharaoh had enslaved Moses’ fellow Jews yet adopted
him made things a bit awkward for Moses.
He grew a tough skin, aided by the fact that he had been bred from
sturdy crocodile stock and already could shrug off glancing blows of an arrow[1]. No matter how much the other boys picked on
him, Moses stayed strong. He refused to
allow anyone else to see him hurt. He
did not, in fact, know what “being hurt” was, but was very afraid he might
become it lest he stay sharp. As Moses
grew into his body, this became easier, especially after he picked one
childhood bully up by the scruff of his neck and promptly removed the child’s
spine through his mouth.
Surprisingly, basketball was not what got Moses through
these tough times. You would think so,
what with this being a book about basketball, but that’s why you’re the reader
and I’m the writer, you dummy. How
stupid are you? I bet you need someone
else to read this to you, you ignoramus[2].
No, Moses knew nothing of basketball until he turned
17. As was traditional for Jews at that
time, Moses spent his birthday alone in the wilderness, searching for peyote
and/or an electronica festival. Failing
at this, he was instead visited by God, who chose to manifest as a burning
net. This net, which had been set ablaze
after three consecutive baskets by Alonzo Mourning, told Moses of the destiny
that lay before him. He would lead the
Jews out of Egypt and to the promised land, where no one would ever bother them
again and where they could live in peace without even once instigating massive
regional conflicts. Moses was told he
must dedicate himself to basketball, as it was basketball that would save his
people and it was basketball that would deliver him the peace he had so long
sought after.
 |
| Fucking watermarks. |
Moses didn’t really believe all this, what with it coming
from a burning net. Granted, it was an
eloquent burning net, but still. Anyone
could set a net on fire, hide behind a nearby bush, and pretend to be God. Moses even suspected that he had seen someone
hiding behind the nearby burning bush while the net spoke to him. Even so, he went back to his adoptive father
and demanded that the Jews be set free.
The pharaoh denied him immediately, as labor didn’t come cheap, even in
those days, and one had to admit that slaves really were cost effective. This did not please Moses, who had set his
mind to finding this new life of fulfillment centered around basketball. He told the pharaoh of how God had decreed
that there would be many plagues visited upon the Egyptians if they did not
free the Jews, including the horrible death of the pharaoh’s first born son,
Jeff Malone. Moses then explained that
he didn’t give a shit about plagues and stole the pharaoh’s ceremonial orb of
pharaohing away from him. This really
tanned Pharaoh’s hide.
After 23 hours of Moses tossing the orb against the wall and
catching it again, with the pharaoh never once able to fight past Moses’ bulk
and get even one rebound, the Egyptians gave in. The Jews would be free to leave and pursue
whatever lives they wished, so long as Moses never again rebounded in the nation
of Egypt. The pharaoh, who was also the
owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, sent Moses away, trading his rights to the
Buffalo Braves lest he torment Egypt again.
Pharaoh changed his mind almost immediately. It was now Moses’ turn to have his hide tanned.
Moses was incensed and brought down the plagues the burning
net had promised him would come to Egypt.
The Nile turned to blood before the pharaoh’s very eyes. This was contributed to God, but Moses had
actually done his groundwork earlier that day, murdering an entire village and
draining them upstream. It pays to plan
ahead.
Pharaoh once again caved to Moses’ demands. He would be allowed to lead the Jews away
from Egypt and to the Utah Stars, who had offered the Jews sanctuary as long as
Moses played for them. He did so for a
full year, averaging 19 and 15 on 57% shooting despite being all of 19 years
old. Despite averaging 5.5 offensive
rebounds, the one thing Moses couldn’t offensive rebound was Pharaoh’s
word. Once again, the pharaoh reneged
and forced the Jews back into slavery.
The Utah Stars agreed to this due to age old debts they owed the
pharaoh, as the Utah Stars were big fans of pyramids and those were sort of a
monopoly business.
 |
| "Oh no, locusts!" |
To speed things up, Moses brought down five plagues at once,
reaching up and plucking them from above God’s head before He[3]
had any chance to corral them. Egypt was
hit with frogs, gnats, flies, locusts, and a few other bugs that were
wrongfully identified as gnats, flies, and/or locusts. The livestock of Egypt became diseased and
died, probably as a side effect of the gnats, flies, and locusts but credited
to Moses’ general plaguing. Again, Moses
had planned ahead: he just bought a bunch of bugs and some frogs at Petco. It was not hard to convince people things
were plagues back then. Again, Pharaoh
let Moses go, this time foisting the Jews on the Spirits of Saint Louis to get
rid of his problem. An odd choice, as
Saint Louis had yet to be discovered and was only sparsely populated by natives[4].
Moses managed just 43 games with Saint Louis before Pharaoh
forced the Jews back into slavery.
Moses was real peeved now.
He skipped past just a whole bunch of plagues and went right to the
death of the firstborn sons. Moses
murdered Jeff Malone in his sleep and, when Pharaoh stumbled upon this scene,
blamed God for it, making up on the spot some stuff about how God wanted the
Jews free and this wasn’t at all because Jeff stole Moses’ Grand Admiral Thrawn
action figure and broke it 10 years ago.
Pharaoh begged Moses to leave this time, and take all the Jews with
him. Nothing was worth this sort of
loss, not even a 6’10” center who had averaged double-digit points and rebounds
in two years before his 21st birthday. Moses and his people fled as quickly as they could
to Houston, lest the pharaoh change his mind.
Days later, the pharaoh changed his mind.
With the combined might of the Egyptian army and that of the
Buffalo Braves, who had foolishly let Moses run to Houston instead of Buffalo
after Moses played two unimpressive games for them, the pharaoh hunted down
Moses and the Jews. Pharaoh needed his
slave work force because again, slaves are a real cost-cutter. Buffalo needed a stud center to fill out a
roster that was surprisingly not all that bad.
Moses would not stand for this, not again. As soon as the last of the Jews reached
Houston, he pulled down the edges of the Gulf of Mexico, which he had been
holding apart. The water crashed in and
destroyed the entire Egyptian army and all the good Buffalo players, freeing
the Jews forever. Moses could not focus
on basketball.
 |
| Buffalo coach Tates Locke |
In his first full year in Houston, free of distractions like
direct commands from God, Moses averaged 19 and 15, pulling down 6.4 offensive
rebounds a game. The next year, he set
the NBA record for most offensive rebounds, pulling down 7.2 a game for a total
of 587. Only three other players have
ever recorded 500 offensive rebounds in a season and none have come within 50
of Malone’s 1978-79 season. Every time
Robert Reid bricked a jumper or Allen Leavell fell over while driving and threw
the ball off the top of the backboard, Moses summoned the famed spirit power of
the Jews, morphing his arms into eight-foot-long ectoplasmic rebound magnets
and pulling the ball off the glass every time.
Of the top ten offensive rebound seasons of all time, Moses would go on
to own five, including the top three, thanks to the Jewish people’s commitment
to their savior.
Moses was so happy with Houston welcoming his people that he
put his all into every single game, desperate to give the good people of the
city a joy like that they had given the Jews.
In every one of his five years there he averaged over 14.5 RPG, pulling
down at least 6 offensive caroms on average as well. He improved his scoring every year there as
well, from 19.4 PPG as a 22-year-old to 31.1 in 1981-82, his 26-year-old
season. He blocked over a shot a game
and averaged a steal a game as well for the Rockets.
Unfortunately for Moses, the Rockets had not bothered to put
together a team around him. Moses was a
force of nature, bringing the Rockets to the NBA Finals in 1981 despite the
team going 40-42 in the regular season.
Those Rockets remain the only team in NBA history to make the finals
with a losing record. Houston’s brass
had grown tired of harboring the Jews, however.
No amount of Moses’ creepy ghost-arm rebounding could convince the city
otherwise.
The exodus was far from over: Moses was sent to the
Philadelphia 76ers, signing there as a free agent after Houston made it clear they
were not interested in him. Their
anti-Semitism ended with the Rockets receiving Caldwell Jones and Rodney McCray
for their two-time NBA MVP.
In Moses’ first year in Philadelphia, he let the team to the
NBA championship after famously declare “fo’ fo’ fo’” when asked for his
prediction for the postseason. Moses,
famously a mumbling, soft-spoken man, had not in fact meant to say “four four
four,” implying the 76ers would sweep their way to the championship, but rather
“for the championship, we will require full effort from four to five starters,
plus our bench.” It was very hard to
understand what Moses said when he spoke.
Nothing changed for Moses in Philadelphia: he still averaged
25 and 15 his first year en route to his third MVP award, becoming one of eight
players ever to win that many. He won
Finals MVP after averaging 26 and 16, then kept it up for another three
years. Once again, his host city decided
that the Jews were too much, and once again Moses was on the move, despite
averaging 21 and 12 in his five years in Philadelphia.
Moses’ exodus would continue for years, as he played in the
NBA until he was 39 years old in hopes of finding his people a permanent
home. He would end his career with
averages of 20 and 12, including 5 offensive rebounds a game. Moses only retired once the nation of Israel
had been successfully formed, knowing that he had finally led his people
home. Of course, Moses was unaware that
the nation of Israel had existed for several decades before his retirement in
1996, but everyone agreed it was better to let him think he did it all. He would end his career the all-time leader
in offensive rebounds, leading Artis Gilmore by over 2500. Moses’ record remains intact, as many say the
ghost of the old man would appear to any who challenged it and, with his Jewish
ancestor-powered ghost arms still at the ready, choke to death the challenger.
To honor Moses for all he did for them, the Jewish people
have vowed to never again have a talented athlete. Moses will stand the test of time as the
greatest bibliballer ever, as well as the true savior of the Jews somehow. Look I don’t know how it all worked, just
read the Bible.
No comments:
Post a Comment