Doug Moe, RIP

If you watched basketball in the 80s, no coach was like Doug Moe. In an era of big personalities as coaches–Pat Riley, Jack Ramsay, Chuck Daly–Moe was one of a kind. His super fast paced offense led by Alex English, Dan Issel, and Kiki Vandeweghe was incredibly fun to watch. Whereas Riley and Ramsay were legendary for how they dressed, Moe was too in a way, in that he looked like a complete slob (though I kinda like that look above). He was funny and cranky and foul-mouthed. When the Nuggets played like shit once against the Blazers, he ordered his team to stop playing defense in the second half of the fourth quarter because their effort was so poor that Portland deserved to set its all-time scoring record against them. He really wasn’t anti-defense, but he was very much pro-offense. I went through my long dry spell of not watching much NBA because the games got so brutal and boring in the mid 90s and that continued until the league started to call hand-checking and Steph Curry redefined the game through his shooting. It was fun again. In those years, I wanted someone like Doug Moe to return. So I wasn’t a Nuggets fan, but I sure enjoyed what he brought to the game. RIP.