Fo', Five, Fo'

Engraved on one side of the 76ers' 1982–83 championship rings are the words "Fo', Five, Fo'," an unwieldy (yet historically accurate) variation on Moses Malone's pre-playoff prediction of three four-game sweeps.

With memories dimmed by the passage of time, there is some dispute about exactly when and where the Sixers center uttered those truncated words. Some even question whether he said them at all. "My vote is, if he didn't, he should have," retired Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Bill Lyon once said.

But Malone insisted he did, and several reporters confirmed as much. It was never intended to be a battle cry or bold prediction, but the team almost made good on his claim, sandwiching sweeps of the Knicks and Lakers around a five-game defeat of Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference finals.

"We had played so many games during the regular season, and I just felt, why play 21 more in the playoffs?" Malone said. "Just win 12 more and go home to rest up for the next year. I spoke to a group of writers, and I was serious. It was no joke, because I felt we could go fo', fo', fo' and have a big ending."

As assistant Matty Guokas said, "It wasn't brash. It was just his way of saying, 'We won 60. If we do what we normally do, we should go right through it.'"

"He said it in a very matter-of-fact way — no big deal in his tone of voice or speaking style," said Roy S. Johnson, who then worked for the New York Times. "Moses just believed it and laid it out there."

Coach Billy Cunningham nonetheless remembers Malone mouthing those words in the trainer's room of the Spectrum, raising the possibility that he said them twice. And a radio reporter named Don Henderson swears Malone made his prediction after a practice at St. Joseph's University, while strength-and-conditioning coach John Kilbourne said he did so from the driver's seat of his GMC Jimmy.

Jack McCaffery, a sportswriter then working for the Trenton Times, believes it happened in the Spectrum locker room on the eve of the playoffs.

"My recollection is, it was some sort of pre-playoff media event," McCaffery said. "There were a lot of people in the room at the time. ... My recollection is, he said it's going to be a long process. We have to win four, then another four, then four again."

Henderson was just as sure that it happened in the same way — but at the locker room at St. Joe's. And Kilbourne's version is the most theatrical of all. He recalled a group of reporters following Malone out to the parking lot at St. Joe's, when Inquirer beat writer George Shirk asked Moses how he thought the playoffs would go.

Malone, who by this point was behind the wheel of his Jimmy, rolled down the driver's side window, spouted, "Fo', fo', fo'," rolled the window back up, and drove off.

Shirk, who was also there, did not recall that exchange.

Billy Cunningham is just as insistent about the trainer's room scenario. And Phil Jasner, the late Daily News beat writer, recalled Cunningham's bemused expression as he emerged from the room wondering what Malone might have meant.

Whatever the case, the impact of Moses' words was widespread. The Lakers' Michael Cooper said he hated the fact that Malone made such a bold prediction. Others, like Milwaukee's Paul Pressey, secretly admired it. "Just like Muhammad Ali, Moses put it right out there in everyone's face," Pressey said, "and almost backed it up."

But it wasn't intended to be anything other than a statement of fact. "Moses wasn't real cocky," said Bobby Jones, the team's sixth man. "He was telling you what he thought. Moses was never one to exaggerate or blow things out of proportion."

The statement nonetheless took on a life of its own. "It turned into Babe Ruth pointing into the bleachers and hitting a home run there," forward Marc Iavaroni said.

Julius Erving

Former 76ers general manager Pat Williams is a gifted storyteller, having written dozens of books and, in his guise as motivational speaker, given hundreds of speeches. And one of his favorite tales is about when Julius Erving came to town.

Erving had already become a legend in the old American Basketball Association, yet it was a league that operated far below the radar. TV coverage...