Doug Moe
Moe with the Carolina Cougars, c. 1970 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 21, 1938 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 17, 2026 (aged 87) San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
| Listed height | 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) |
| Listed weight | 215 lb (98 kg) |
| Career information | |
| High school | Bullis School (Potomac, Maryland) |
| College | North Carolina (1958–1961) |
| NBA draft | 1961: 2nd round, 22nd overall pick |
| Drafted by | Chicago Packers |
| Playing career | 1965–1972 |
| Position | Small forward |
| Number | 34, 15 |
| Coaching career | 1972–2008 |
| Career history | |
Playing | |
| 1965–1967 | Pallacanestro Petrarca Padova |
| 1967–1968 | New Orleans Buccaneers |
| 1968–1969 | Oakland Oaks |
| 1969–1970 | Carolina Cougars |
| 1970–1972 | Virginia Squires |
Coaching | |
| 1972–1974 | Carolina Cougars (assistant) |
| 1974–1976 | Denver Nuggets (assistant) |
| 1976–1980 | San Antonio Spurs |
| 1980–1990 | Denver Nuggets |
| 1992–1993 | Philadelphia 76ers |
| 2005–2008 | Denver Nuggets (assistant) |
| Career highlights | |
As player:
As coach: | |
| Career ABA playing statistics | |
| Points | 6,161 (16.3 ppg) |
| Rebounds | 2,560 (6.8 rpg) |
| Assists | 1,197 (3.2 apg) |
| Stats at Basketball Reference | |
| Career coaching record | |
| NBA | 628–529 (.543) |
| Record at Basketball Reference | |
Douglas Edwin Moe (September 21, 1938 – February 17, 2026) was an American professional basketball player and coach. A star small forward playing college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels, Moe was a two-time All-American but was accused of point shaving. He was cleared of fixing games, but was kicked out of school and blackballed from the National Basketball Association (NBA). Moe played professionally in the Italian league Lega Basket Serie A in 1965 before signing on with the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA) with the New Orleans Buccaneers in 1967, where he played with his former college teammate Larry Brown. Moe played five seasons for four teams while being named an ABA All-Star three times and winning the ABA championship in 1969 with the Oakland Oaks.
Injuries to his knees forced him to retire at the age of 33, and he immediately became an assistant coach with Brown's Carolina Cougars in 1972. He joined Brown on the Denver Nuggets in 1974 before being named head coach of the San Antonio Spurs in 1976 as their very first coach in the NBA era. In four seasons, with a high-scoring offense, the Spurs won their first ever division championships and reached the conference finals in 1979, but Moe was fired in late 1980. In 1980, he became head coach of the Denver Nuggets, where he coached the next 10 years. They won 432 games in his tenure of run-and-gun offense with nine postseason appearances, two division championships and a conference finals appearance in 1985 while Moe was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1988. He left the Nuggets in 1990 and was hired by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1992, where they won 19 of 56 games before he was fired. He became a coaching consultant for Denver in 2002 (which retired a "432" banner in his honor that same year) and served as an assistant coach until 2008.
In 2018, he was awarded the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award.