Joe Wolf, who played for North Carolina and 7 NBA teams, dies at 59

Joe Wolf, a former North Carolina captain for Dean Smith who went on to play for seven groups in an 11-year NBA profession earlier than turning into a coach, died unexpectedly Thursday, the Milwaukee Bucks introduced.

Wolf, an assistant coach for the Wisconsin Herd — the Bucks’ G League affiliate — was 59.

“All through his life, Joe touched many lives and was a extremely revered, adored and devoted coach and participant throughout the NBA,” the Bucks stated in a launch asserting Wolf’s dying. “His well-regarded expertise was instrumental for the Bucks and Herd over eight years with the group, together with as a participant and coach.”

Wolf was a highschool All-American in 1983 earlier than becoming a member of the Tar Heels to play alongside the likes of Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins. Wolf was a co-captain for the Tar Heels as a senior in 1986-87, sharing that position with Kenny Smith.

North Carolina went 115-22 in Wolf’s 4 seasons, making the Candy 16 twice and the Elite Eight twice in that span. Wolf — a 6-foot-11 heart and ahead — shortly moved into teaching as soon as his NBA profession was executed, utilizing abilities he stated Smith started instilling in him from the beginning of his school expertise.

“I prefer to assume I began getting skilled the minute I stepped on campus,” Wolf advised the Greensboro (N.C.) Information and File in 2018. “Coach Smith was all about constructing the correct habits. That advantages me at the moment.”

He was an All-ACC decide in 1987 and left North Carolina with 1,231 factors. The Los Angeles Clippers used the No. 13 decide within the 1987 draft on Wolf, who spent his first three NBA seasons there earlier than taking part in for Denver, Charlotte, Orlando, Portland, Boston and Milwaukee — a return to his house state of Wisconsin, the place he was a highschool legend.

Wolf led Kohler Excessive College to 3 Wisconsin state championships, and in 2005 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel named him the state’s biggest highschool basketball participant ever, the Bucks stated.

He coached on the school degree as an assistant at William & Mary and UNC Wilmington, was a head coach in what’s now known as the G League with Idaho, Colorado and Greensboro, had been an NBA assistant for Milwaukee and Brooklyn and was employed in 2023 as a G League assistant for the Herd.

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