Earlier this week, we got the sad news that former basketball player and coach Doug Moe passed away at the age of 87. Moe is probably best known as the coach of several NBA teams, most notably the Denver Nuggets in the 1980s. His Denver teams played a remarkably fast paced, motion offense, regularly scoring more than 120+ points per game. He was a fairly successful coach too, as his teams made the playoffs in nine of the 10 years he was in Denver, advancing to the conference finals in 1985.
Long before his coaching career, Moe was a player. In fact, he was a player at UNC who seemed to be on his way to great things before circumstances got in the way.
Moe came out of Brooklyn, he was part of the Frank McGuire/NYC pipeline, and began playing for the Tar Heels in the 1958-59 season. He fully broke out the following year, averaging a double double with 16.8 points and a team-leading 11.3 rebounds per game. Finally in 1960-61, he put up a remarkable 20.4 points and 14.0 rebounds a game, for which he was voted an All-American by several of the different voting bodies that hand out that honor.
However, later it was revealed that prior to the 1960-61 season, he had accepted $75 to take a meeting with some people who were looking to fix games. Unlike teammate Lou Brown, who set up the meeting, Moe was never implicated for anything beyond taking the meeting, never mind throwing games, but the damage was done. He was suspended from the university, and the resulting scandal led to McGuire losing his coaching gig at UNC. That, of course, led to Dean Smith getting the gig, so that worked out at least.
Meanwhile, Moe himself got blackballed from the NBA for his part, leading to him spending his playing career in the ABA. He got his start in coaching there as well, eventually coming over to the NBA following the merger. After his Nuggets’ stint, his last head coaching gig came with the 76ers in 1992-93. He mostly walked away from coaching after that, but did later return to the Nuggets as a consultant and assistant coach.
The way his UNC tenure ended makes things a little awkward for the school itself to celebrate him too much. However, Doug Moe was a very good basketball player for the Tar Heels, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.
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