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

Updated Sep. 27, 2024 10:42 a.m. ET

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Joe Wolf, a former North Carolina captain for Dean Smith who went on to play for seven teams in an 11-year NBA career before becoming a coach, died unexpectedly Thursday, the Milwaukee Bucks announced.

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

“Throughout his life, Joe touched many lives and was a highly respected, adored and dedicated coach and player across the NBA,” the Bucks said in a release announcing Wolf's death. “His well-regarded talent was instrumental for the Bucks and Herd over eight years with the organization, including as a player and coach.”

Wolf was a high school All-American in 1983 before joining 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 role with Kenny Smith.

North Carolina went 115-22 in Wolf's four seasons, making the Sweet 16 twice and the Elite Eight twice in that span. Wolf — a 6-foot-11 center and forward — quickly moved into coaching once his NBA career was done, using skills he said Smith began instilling in him from the start of his college experience.

“I like to think I started getting trained the minute I stepped on campus,” Wolf told the Greensboro (N.C.) News and Record in 2018. “Coach Smith was all about building the proper habits. That benefits me today.”

He was an All-ACC pick in 1987 and left North Carolina with 1,231 points. The Los Angeles Clippers used the No. 13 pick in the 1987 draft on Wolf, who spent his first three NBA seasons there before playing for Denver, Charlotte, Orlando, Portland, Boston and Milwaukee — a return to his home state of Wisconsin, where he was a high school legend.

Wolf led Kohler High School to three Wisconsin state championships, and in 2005 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel named him the state's greatest high school basketball player ever, the Bucks said.

He coached at the college level as an assistant at William & Mary and UNC Wilmington, was a head coach in what is now called the G League with Idaho, Colorado and Greensboro, had been an NBA assistant for Milwaukee and Brooklyn and was hired in 2023 as a G League assistant for the Herd.

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