Early Years in The NBA
The ABA-NBA merger occurred after the 1975–76 season, but the Spirits of St. Louis were one of the ABA teams that did not join the NBA. In the ABA Dispersal Draft held on August 5, the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers selected Malone from the Spirits of St. Louis with the fifth overall pick. Malone's NBA rights had previously been by the New Orleans Jazz, but the NBA let them place Malone into the draft pool in exchange for the return of their 1st-round draft pick in 1977, which they used to trade for Gail Goodrich.
The 21-year-old center never played a regular-season game for the Blazers, however. Prior to the first game of the 1976–77 season Portland traded him to the Buffalo Braves for a 1978 first-round draft choice. Even then, Malone's travels were not over. After only two games with Buffalo he was traded by the Braves to the Houston Rockets for two future first-round draft choices.
Malone found a home in Houston, where he was reunited with Coach Tom Nissalke, who had coached him in his rookie season with the ABA's Utah Stars. With the Rockets, Malone established himself immediately as one of the NBA's most ferocious rebounders, particularly on the offensive end. He appeared in 82 games overall for both Buffalo and Houston and finished with averages of 13.2 points and 13.1 rebounds per game. He ranked third in the NBA in rebounding behind Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and established a new NBA record for offensive rebounds in a season, with 437, shattering Paul Silas's old mark of 365. (Malone would break his own record two years later.) Malone also ranked seventh in the league in blocked shots, with 2.21 per game.
He delivered in the playoffs, helping the Rockets to the Eastern Conference Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Malone averaged 18.8 points and 16.9 rebounds in 12 playoff games. He set an NBA Playoff record with 15 offensive rebounds in an overtime victory against the Washington Bullets in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Malone's second NBA season ended prematurely when he suffered a stress fracture in his right foot and missed the Rockets' final 23 games. Remarkably, he still led the NBA in total offensive rebounds (380) and finished second in rebounding average (15.0 rpg) behind Leonard "Truck" Robinson (15.7).
Malone made the first of what would be 12 consecutive All-Star Game appearances in 1978, the year that would have been his senior season had he chosen to play college basketball. His scoring output surged to 19.4 points per game, third best on the Rockets behind Calvin Murphy's 25.6 and Rudy Tomjanovich's 21.5. During Malone's first two seasons in Houston, he wore jersey #21. In his breakout season of 1979, he switched to the now familiar #24, the number eventually retired by the Rockets.
Read more about this topic: Moses Malone
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
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