Former Denver Nuggets coach Doug Moe dies at 87

Doug Moe, who introduced a fast-paced offense during his 15 seasons as an NBA coach -- including 10 with the Denver Nuggets -- died on Tuesday. He was 87.

Moe died after a long battle with cancer, Ron Zappolo, a longtime Denver media personality and friend of the coach, told The Associated Press, citing Moe’s son, David, as his source.

Moe, an irreverent and mercurial coach who won 628 games during his career, won a then-franchise record 432 games as the Nuggets’ coach from 1980 to 1990. He won Coach of the Year honors in 1988 after leading Denver to a 54-28 mark, according to The Athletic.

The franchise record stood until Nov. 23, 2024, when Michael Malone topped it in his 10th season, The Denver Post reported.

The Nuggets finished with a winning record in seven of Moe’s nine full seasons as coach, The Athletic reported.

“Coach Moe was a one of a kind leader and person who spearheaded one of the most successful and exciting decades in Nuggets history,” the team said in a statement.

When the Nuggets fired Moe in 1990, he wore a Hawaiian shirt to a news conference and popped champagne with his wife, Jane, acknowledging that the team still had to pay the remaining years owed on his contract, the Post reported.

Moe’s gregarious personality enabled him to talk basketball with anyone willing to have a conversation.

“He would sort of dig an argument out of you, a viewpoint,” Allan Bristow, Moe’s longtime friend who played for him in San Antonio and coached with him for six years in Denver, told the newspaper. “And whatever viewpoint I had, he went against it.”

Moe pioneered a frenetic run-and-gun offense that typically allowed the Nuggets to score 120 points or more in a game, the newspaper reported. His 1981-82 squad averaged 126.48 points per game and is the only team to score at least 100 points in all 82 regular-season games.

According to The Athletic, the Nuggets under Moe also scored at least 100 points in 136 straight games.

On Dec. 13, 1983, Denver lost a 186-184 triple-overtime shootout to the Detroit Pistons in what is still the highest-scoring game in NBA history.

“Organized chaos,” Bristow told the Post.

Moe also coached the San Antonio Spurs for four seasons 1976-1980), finishing with a winning record in his first three seasons. He finished his head coaching career in Philadelphia in a tenure that lasted less than a season, the AP reported. He returned to Denver as an assistant to George Karl.

Moe was a two-time All-American at North Carolina but was wrongfully accused in a point-shaving scandal, according to his biography in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. His college playing career was terminated because he received $75 to fly to a meeting, the AP reported. He refused to throw games.

Blackballed by the NBA, Moe joined the Army and then played professionally in Italy before joining the ABA with the New Orleans Buccaneers.

He led the league with 1,884 points during the 1967-68 season, finishing second in MVP voting to Connie Hawkins. During his second year in the league, Moe helped the Oakland Oaks to an ABA title.

He finished his playing career in 1972 after playing two seasons in Carolina and one in Virginia.

Moe was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1997. He was born on Sept. 21, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York, and would be honored by the New York City Sports Hall of Fame in 1998, the Post reported. He was also enshrined in the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.

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