Philadelphia 76ers: Ranking the championship seasons
By Matt Plesco
2. 1983 championship
The Sixers had just lost to the Lakers in six games in the 1982 Finals. Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar absolutely destroyed the Sixers. A Philadelphia entrepreneur named Harold Katz bought the team. One of his first moves was to acquire a piece that would win the Sixers the NBA Finals. On Sept. 2, 1982, the Sixers signed reigning league MVP Moses Malone.
With Malone, Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, and Andrew Toney, the Sixers dominated the regular season, finishing with a record of 65-17 — the best in the NBA.
Prior to the playoffs, league MVP Moses Malone famously said “fo, fo, fo,” referring to the fact that the Sixers would only need to play 12 games to win the title. The Sixers easily swept the Knicks in the Eastern semis before cruising past Milwaukee to set up a rematch with Kareem and the Lakers.
Katz’s acquisition paid off massively. Moses Malone dominated every game of the series, winning Finals MVP, averaging nearly 26 points while grabbing 18 rebounds a game. He held Kareem to a mere 7.5 rebounds per game.
Head coach Billy Cunningham put it simply: “the difference from last year was Moses.”
The 1982-83 Sixers were the last team in franchise history to win the title. With four Hall of Famers on the roster, the Sixers compiled one of the best teams in both Franchise and League history.