Moses and Manute: The Bullets’ ‘Old’ Power and Young Tower

On a recent morning, Manute Bol, the world’s tallest stand-up comedian, Dinka division, interrupted his giggle-laced commentary on the state of the Washington Bullets long enough to call out a compliment across the team’s practice gym here.

“That’s the way to hustle, big guy,” he said to a begoggled Moses Malone, whose appearance here had been delayed somewhat. He had been pulled over in his Maserati for speeding en route from the Virginia border, where he lives.

But wait a Manute. Who’s calling whom big guy ? The 7-foot 6-inch center from Sudan towers over the 6-10 Malone like the Washington Monument over the reflecting pool.

Yet, as Bol correctly recognized, even he exists in the shadow of Malone, who last spring was evicted from the promised land he thought he had found in Philadelphia, where he had led the 76ers to a National Basketball Assn. title in 1983.

Malone, called an “old 31” by 76er owner Harold Katz, has taken to his new assignment with the zeal of an Ollie North, and there hasn’t been anything covert about it.

“He’s playing like he’s on a mission,” said Bill Bertka, the Lakers’ assistant coach. “It looks like he wants to prove some people wrong.”

Need convincing? The Bullets have played the 76ers three times this season, and Washington has won all three meetings.

“When I was there, (the 76ers) knew I was coming to play,” Malone said. “And once I got traded, they knew I was coming to play. It ain’t no different.”

Oh no?

In the first game against his former team, on Dec. 25 in Philly, Malone scored 28 points and pulled down 21 rebounds. In the second game, on Jan. 10 in the Capital Centre, Malone had 39 points and 17 rebounds. In the third game, on Jan. 31 at Washington, Malone had 27 points and 11 rebounds.

“Did you see that? They put (Charles) Barkley on me,” Malone ho-ho-ho’d on Christmas. “I’m embarrassed. Barkley’s only 6-4, and he’s probably 6-2 now that I’m finished with him.”

Malone didn’t see Katz. “But I saw the smoke rising from his booth,” the Bullet center said.

And although the Bullets (24-22) have yet to catch fire, struggling while Coach Kevin Loughery tries to find the right blend among nine new players, Malone has torched all claims that the slip was showing in his play.

He’s scoring 25 points a game, more than any other NBA center, and averaging a dozen rebounds, fourth in the league.

“People always get the crazy idea that a player over 30 can’t play no more,” said Malone, who was voted the starting center for the East in today’s All-Star game at Seattle.

“That’s why I’m so happy Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) is still going,” Malone said. “And he’s playing great. When he got to 31, they said he didn’t have it no more, either.”

Malone is eight years younger than the Laker center, but only five active players--Abdul-Jabbar, 39, Julius Erving, 36, Artis Gilmore, 37, and Caldwell Jones, 36--had played in more games than Malone, who has appeared in 943 since turning pro straight out of high school in Petersburg, Va.

“It’s all in your mind,” Malone said. “When I came out of high school as an 18-year-old, people told me I wasn’t ready. But I knew about myself. They didn’t.”

He didn’t take it personally, he said, when Philadelphia suggested that his skills were declining, pointing out that last season he had failed to lead the league in rebounding for the first time in the last five seasons, and that his shooting percentage had declined to 45.8%, the worst in his 12-season career.

Malone has no peer as an offensive rebounder, it was generally agreed, but all those nights of relentless pounding the boards had to have taken their toll. Or at least that was the line coming out of Philadelphia on draft day last June, when the 76ers sent Malone, forward Terry Catledge and two No. 1 draft picks to the Bullets for center Jeff Ruland and forward Cliff Robinson.

Malone shrugged. “People worry about what other people say,” he said, “It doesn’t sting me. That’s life. I don’t take it as a challenge. But some people obviously don’t know what they’re talking about.”

It was a shocking deal, one that was blasted publicly by 76er statesman Erving, among others, while it was still in the rumor stage.

So why did the 76ers do it? Abdul-Jabbar offered an idea.

“I think they were disappointed Moses wasn’t able to play in the playoffs when they needed him,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “I think there may have been an emotional backdrop to that whole scene.”

On the eve of the playoffs last season, Malone was accidentally poked in his right eye by Randy Breuer, Milwaukee backup center, and the orbital bone around Malone’s eye was broken. Without Malone, the 76ers squeezed past the Bullets in the opening round but fell in seven games to the Bucks when Erving missed a shot in the closing seconds.

“I’d rather have my eye than my career,” said Malone, explaining why he did not play. “I play hurt, but when I’m really hurt, I take it seriously. I don’t mess around with serious things like an eye injury.”

So it was on to Washington, the seventh pro team to have engaged the services of the three-time MVP, however briefly. He began his career with the Utah Stars of the ABA in 1974 and also played with St. Louis. When the NBA absorbed four ABA teams in 1976, Portland picked him in the dispersal draft, then traded him to Buffalo, where he played a total of six minutes before being sent to Houston for two No. 1’s.

Now he’s within 125 miles of where he grew up. “But until they put a team in Petersburg, you can’t say I’m playing at home,” he said.

Perhaps Malone will be the man to put a team there. He’s commanding an estimated $2.1 million in a contract that is due to expire after next season. According to a Washington magazine, his contract makes him the highest-salaried employee in the Washington area.

That came as no shock to former teammate Barkley, who gave a variation of Babe Ruth’s famous response about making more money than President Hoover--”I had a better year than he did.”

Said Barkley to the Washington Post: “He’s the best rebounder in Washington, ain’t he?”

But where does all this leave Bol, who last season gave indications of being the best shot-blocker on the planet, never mind just Washington?

Much of the time, on the bench, even though Bol underwent a rigorous conditioning program last summer under the supervision of Mackie Shilstone, the fitness expert who supervised the training of heavyweight fighter Mike Tyson.

Shilstone put Bol on a special diet--5,000 calories a day, supplemented by 40 vitamins and amino acid tablets. He had him drinking nutrient-laced water. He had him lifting weights, running and doing assorted exercises for six weeks.

The result? Bol, who had dropped to a skin-and-bones 195 on his ultra-long frame by the end of last season, said he weighed close to 230 pounds at the start of training camp. Shilstone proclaimed that Bol had made great strides in his strength and endurance.

Laker forward Kurt Rambis, asked if he noticed a difference after leaning against Bol in a recent game, said: “Sure, you could tell, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need another 150 pounds or so.”

Bol, who set a rookie record of 397 blocked shots last season, including 15 in one game against Atlanta, didn’t feel strong as much as he felt slow.

“I wasn’t used to gaining weight like that,” he said. “I wasn’t used to carrying that weight running up and down the court.”

He soon found that he was having trouble keeping the extra pounds on, and it didn’t help his state of mind to be spending so much time on the bench--playing about 10 minutes a game--after averaging nearly 35 last winter, when Ruland was injured.

He still has his moments, though. He blocked five shots in a short stint against the Lakers and had a season-high of eight blocks against New Jersey Jan. 7. But he has no chance of defending his shot-blocking title.

“I think I am (the league’s best shot blocker),” he said. “If I had the chance this year, I’d be the champion again. But I’m not thinking about it anymore.”

The lack of playing time is clearly frustrating.

“If I’m not playing, how am I going to learn?” he asked. “I think it’s wrong to say in three or four years I’ll be a good player. How am I going to be good if I’m not playing?”

Loughery, however, prefers to wait for Bol’s game to catch up to his physique.

“He’ll play basketball a long time,” Loughery said of his 24-year-old project. “You just can’t find big people like him.

“He’s got to incorporate himself in the rest of the offense. Until he does, his potential will be unfulfilled. He has to work on catching and maintaining--catching the ball and maintaining it.

“If you watch him in the (practice) gym, he’ll shock you. His shot is decent, and he handles the ball decently. But in a game, when they start pressuring his shot, slapping at the ball in traffic, that’s when he has trouble.”

Bullet trainer John Lally has doubts about Bol ever being able to overcome all of his physical deficiencies. “I don’t know if he can,” Lally said. “A lot of it is hereditary.”

In the interim, the Bullets try to make sure Bol eats plenty--he loves pizza--and only hope that when he leaves practice in his Chevy Blazer (the front seat is set way in the back), he dedicates himself to his workouts. Some team officials have their doubts, saying that Bol has developed a strain of arrogance that makes him extremely difficult to work with.

That arrogance, however, is nowhere to be found on the basketball court, where Bol’s tenor laugh and jiving at his teammates are nonstop.

“He’s still a young player and he loves the game,” said Malone, who frequently plays one on one against Bol, trying to acclimate him to the bumping and grinding that is part of the life of NBA centers.

“He loves to block shots. If he motivates himself, there’s no one in the world who can stop him.”

And even though other teams are adjusting to Bol’s presence by trying to isolate him outside, Loughery said he’ll still get his blocks.

“If he gets his minutes, he’ll block his shots,” Loughery said. “People don’t want their shots blocked--it’s a macho thing in our league. But he blocks shots like no one else.”