When looking back on the life and times of perhaps the most significant Denver Nugget not named Jokic, there are many slam dunks: The Basketball Hall of Fame<\/a>. The 27,000 points. The six All-Star Games. Two stints as coach, including the unprecedented playoff upset that left a tearful Dikembe Mutombo flat on his back, refusing to let go of the ball.<\/p>\n Or my favorite: Issel played 1,350 games over his 15-year professional career and missed only 24. Of his teams\u2019 133 postseason games, he sat out zero.<\/p>\n But in his new memoir, Issel doesn\u2019t even get past his preface before planting his massive frame under the basket and inviting all comers:<\/p>\n \u201cOn December 11, 2001, I made a terrible remark in the heat of the moment; something I deeply regret to this day,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n Following a frustrating 99-96 home loss to Charlotte, a heckling fan taunted Coach Issel as he walked off the Pepsi Center floor. Issel snapped back, \u201cGo drink another beer, you Mexican piece of (expletive).\u201d It was all caught on camera. Outrage, threatened boycotts and a four-game suspension followed. Despite a public apology and a meeting with local community leaders, Issel resigned \u2013\u00a0and his 31-year life in professional basketball was over.<\/p>\n \u201cThat moment brought shame on me, my family, and my fans,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t believe what I was reading.<\/p>\n One paragraph later, he\u2019s addressing what he calls the darkest day of his life: an embarrassing 2009 bankruptcy that essentially came down to bad investments. A legal but hardly moral failure \u2013\u00a0yet it cost him his home, his self-esteem and most of his belongings, including his Hall of Fame and Kentucky Colonels ABA championship rings. \u201cWe were allowed to keep up to $10,000 worth of property,\u201d Issel writes. \u201cThe court representative came out to our house and began pointing. He\u2019d say things like, \u2018That stool\u2019s worth $50. Do you want to keep it or not?\u2019 It was awful; truly the worst thing I\u2019ve ever been through.\u201d<\/p>\n Issel addresses both of these painful incidents with blindsiding candor in his new book \u201cDan Issel: From Kentucky Wildcat to NBA Legend<\/a>,\u201d co-written by Doug Brunk and slated for a Nov. 2 release.<\/p>\n As a lifelong Denver Rockets\/Nuggets fan, I was trying to decide whether I never knew about the bankruptcy story or had simply forgotten it. As for the epithet Issel has sent a quarter-century atoning for: I\u2019ve taught journalism in the state correctional system, where I often find myself reminding people that none of us should be defined by our worst moments.<\/p>\n As I was reading, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder: Why is he being so forthright and confessional in this one-way conversation where the author gets to set the tone of the narrative? He could have left out the hard parts and focused on the many glories of a remarkable career and been done with it. The reader doesn\u2019t have a say.<\/p>\n Then the why became obvious: He\u2019s a coach. Our successes aren\u2019t inherently teachable moments. Not like our failures.<\/p>\n Coaches coach. Even from behind a keyboard. This memoir is Issel\u2019s playbook.<\/p>\n \u201cI hadn\u2019t thought of it that way, but that\u2019s a good point,\u201d Issel said when we were connected by phone last week. \u201cI believe that if you only cover the great times, then that\u2019s an Instagram post \u2013\u00a0not a true reflection of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n I asked Issel why he reported so openly on the bad times when he knew his kids and grandkids were going to read it. His answer: Precisely because he knew his kids and his grandkids were going to read it.<\/p>\n \u201cI want people to know how important my faith and my family are to me,\u201d he said. And he wants them to know that the man who imploded that day isn\u2019t who he is. At that moment, he was a coach not used to losing riding a 7-14 start, an injury to star forward Antonio McDyess and massive internal friction. Hours before, star point guard Nick Van Exel publicly demanded a trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n When Issel popped off, he obviously didn\u2019t know a random camera was rolling nearby. But he\u2019s glad it was.<\/p>\n No, really.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause maybe it was God rescuing me from the situation,\u201d Issel said. \u201cI certainly believe in divine intervention, that is 100% correct. There are so many examples in my life, John, that I can\u2019t list them all.\u201d<\/p>\n Deep down, Issel knew: \u201cIt was time for me to leave,\u201d he said of coaching the Nuggets. \u201cI believed that wholeheartedly.\u201d<\/p>\n The thing is: I had no intention of asking Issel about the biggest humiliations of his life. But it was almost as if, through his preface, he was inviting me to go ahead and ask. Why? So he could talk about the grace, forgiveness and resilience that followed \u2013\u00a0which are far greater reasons for writing a book than a checklist of personal accomplishments.\u00a0<\/p>\n No, what I really wanted to talk to Issel about was the time he first allowed me to interview him for my high-school journalism class \u2013\u00a047 years ago.<\/p>\n Next stop: 1979<\/p>\n At 15, I was the starting center in my sophomore journalism class. Not in size, but in stature. That\u2019s because we had been assigned to go out and \u201cinterview someone famous\u201d \u2013\u00a0and I landed the captain of the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n Admittedly, Issel did it purely as a favor to my father, Ralph Moore, then the longtime Nuggets beat reporter for The Denver Post. A shortcut, certainly. But an early journo lesson on the importance of developing a deep roster of sources \u2013\u00a0starting with your father.<\/p>\n When we sat down, the first thing I noticed, of course, were the missing front teeth. You know how the city would soon come to collectively tease John Elway because of his horse teeth? Well, here was \u201cThe (actual) Horse\u201d \u2013\u00a0and he had nothing up front at all. I was too shy to ask about it then, and I am too shy to ask about it now. But the book told me Issel\u2019s feet slipped in gym class on the first day of eighth grade, and out came three teeth, roots and all.<\/p>\n My paper was dated Dec. 12, 1979. Here\u2019s how I set it up, bad punctuation and all:<\/p>\n \u201cBeing in an empty 17,000-set McNichols Sports Arena can make you feel like the smallest thing in the world. It is awesome. Then when 11 Denver Nuggets, who combine to make just under two million dollars a year come onto the practice floor, the feeling does not go away.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ll pause now for your laughter.<\/p>\n Two million dollars?<\/p>\n For the record, the Nuggets\u2019 payroll last season was $200 million \u2013\u00a0an increase of 9,900% over the past 47 years. On the day we talked again, the news had broken that Peyton Watson signed an $88 million free-agent contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n Issel made $18 million over 15 professional seasons. And, again, he missed all of 24 games in his entire career. Watson missed 34 last year alone, not to mention the entire playoffs.<\/p>\n Issel was nicer about it than most Nuggets fans.<\/p>\n \u201cI will never begrudge anybody for making what they\u2019re making,\u201d Issel said. \u201cI\u2019m sure Peyton didn\u2019t hold a gun to anybody\u2019s head. I mean, they negotiated the deal. Bill Russell probably thought the money that I was making was ridiculous, so it\u2019s all relative.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe so. In 1970, as a coveted college star from the hometown University of Kentucky, Issel signed a then-massive multi-year rookie contract with the ABA\u2019s Kentucky Colonels valued at $1.4 million \u2013\u00a0a record for its time.<\/p>\n Yes, \u201cplayer salaries have escalated beyond belief,\u201d Issel said, citing the three-year, $90 million contract the Nuggets signed Paul Millsap to in 2017. (\u201cI figured out that he made more money in one game than I made the first five years I played,\u201d he said with a laugh.) But he\u2019s far more piqued by the secretive way the NBA hides specific injury information about any given player. How hurt was Watson? Jokic? Braun? Your guess was as good as anybody\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I have a much bigger problem with the load-management thing than I do with the salaries,\u201d he said. What\u2019s that? Nicely put, it\u2019s the strategic practice where NBA teams rest healthy or \u201cslightly hurt players\u201d during the season to ensure peak performance for the playoffs.<\/p>\n Not so nicely put: It\u2019s ducking. Punting. Soft tanking. The media (and fans) are never told.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d Issel said. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine walking into the Nuggets locker room in my day and saying, \u2018You know guys, I\u2019m fine. But I played 40 minutes last night, and we\u2019ve got a game two nights from tonight, so I\u2019m just not going to play tonight.\u2019 Well, they would\u2019ve beaten me up. You owe it to the fans with the ticket prices they pay today.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, I\u2019m not going to say you should play if you\u2019re hurt. But if you can get out there and contribute, that\u2019s what you ought to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Losing his grip<\/p>\n When we spoke in 1979, Issel had never played on a losing team in his life. But those Nuggets were 11-20 and on their way to a 30-52 finish \u2013\u00a0and three losing seasons out of four. Issel gritted his remaining teeth and told a young me then: \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how frustrating it is for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, I asked: How did a guy as competitive as you get through that period?<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it was miserable because the top priority for me was always winning,\u201d he said. \u201cMy old Kentucky coach, Adolph Rupp, always said, \u2018If it doesn\u2019t matter if you win or lose, why do they keep score?\u2019 So, that was the most important thing to me. Not how many points I scored or how many rebounds I got. And that year was absolutely the worst because a bunch of guys were at the end of their careers, and I didn\u2019t feel like we were all giving 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n Issel spoke with me (and writes in his book) about the glory days of the ABA, including the historic 1976 All-Star Game that introduced the slam-dunk contest. It also featured concerts by Glen Campbell and Charlie Pride, and ended with the Nuggets, playing as an intact unit, beating the ABA\u2019s collective opposing all-stars. He talks about his running feud with Larry Brown and his joy that fellow former Nuggets coach George Karl succeeded in producing the ABA documentary \u201cSoul Power<\/a>,\u201d and got it distributed on Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was very well done,\u201d Issel said. \u201cThe generation that was around when the ABA was thriving is starting to go out of existence. So, it\u2019s important for new people to understand that the ABA was a great league that really led to a resurgence of interest in professional basketball. A lot of people today wouldn\u2019t realize that in a lot of markets in the \u201970s, the NBA Finals were carried on tape delay after the 10 o\u2019clock news. I mean, basketball just wasn\u2019t that popular. And I\u2019m telling you, the NBA today looks a whole lot more like the ABA in the \u201970s than the NBA in the \u201970s.\u201d<\/p>\n Of everything we talked about, I was second-most excited to revisit Issel\u2019s 10 days as a member of the Baltimore Claws, a franchise that folded so fast that it never played a game. I don\u2019t know why. Maybe because I still have a Claws pennant in my cubby hole.<\/p>\n \u201cI can honestly say to you that my 10 days in Baltimore were the 10 worst days of my life,\u201d Issel told me in 1979. \u201cThe people running the franchise had no experience or expertise in the field. They had no organization and no money. Learning that I was traded to Denver was like getting a reprieve from the governor.\u201d<\/p>\n Can you say, \u201cmoney quote?\u201d My teacher couldn\u2019t believe I got it. That was sophomore gold.<\/p>\n But the subject I wanted most to address, out of my own complete selfish nostalgia, was my dad. Ralph has been gone nearly 30 years. When you\u2019re a son, the opportunity to ask a guy, \u201cWhat do you remember about my dad?\u201d is an invaluable gift. More so when it\u2019s Issel.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, let me tell you: Your dad was terrific,\u201d Issel told me. \u201cHe was an old-time newspaper writer \u2013\u00a0and I say that with the greatest respect because, after a while, with the way the competition between the Post and the Rocky Mountain News evolved, if you were a player or a coach, you didn\u2019t stand a chance. You always felt like those reporters were trying to uncover something spectacular that would give them a foot up in the ratings. But your dad was old school. He covered the Nuggets very professionally, which I always appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n That got us talking about David \u201cSkywalker\u201d Thompson \u2013 Jordan before Jordan \u2013\u00a0the superstar with a legendary 44-inch vertical leap. My dad (and his kids) were witness to his epic fall from grace fueled by a rapid series of injuries and severe substance abuse.<\/p>\n I told Issel something he never knew: That Ralph was fully aware of Thompson\u2019s addiction and tried to do something about it. That he approached General Manager Carl Scheer and threatened to expose the situation in print. Not to shame Thompson or to sell papers. Like Issel, Ralph was a father and a coach. He saw full transparency as his only way to force the team to do the right thing and get Thompson the help he needed. He thought Thompson\u2019s life might depend on it.<\/p>\n The irony? In the end, it was my dad\u2019s own sports editor who didn\u2019t want to run the story. This was in the dying days of a time when a \u201crespectable\u201d newspaper regarded a public figure\u2019s private life as exactly that.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that would be handled very differently today,\u201d Issel said. \u201cThey would run the story \u2013\u00a0and not with the idea that they were helping David, but because they would be able to report on something sensational. And I think your dad was right on. The Nuggets \u2013\u00a0and the community at large, for that matter \u2013 they really didn\u2019t want to admit that David was in trouble. Because even though he was starting to decline, he was still a heck of a player. And so I think they were a little selfish in hoping that somehow the thing would turn around without their intervention, and that David would be David again. But I think you\u2019re absolutely right: Had they addressed the problem earlier, David\u2019s entire life might have gone a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m not even sure if Issel realized that what he was saying in that moment paralleled his own story: That sometimes, intervention (divine or otherwise) means telling the uncomfortable truth.<\/p>\n It was funny, talking with Issel, an absolute legend in my young life, in this wholly unexpected way: About our common humanity. About our failures. About faith, fathers, forgiveness and starting over.<\/p>\n Our conversation, in the end, wasn\u2019t about mistakes. It was about what happens next.<\/p>\n This was not the same Dan Issel I met in 1979. I am certainly no longer a 15-year-old boy. Thompson completely turned his life around, found long-term sobriety and dedicated the rest of his life to counseling youth on the dangers of addiction.<\/p>\n \u00a0Of all the questions asked and answered, the one underlying it all was this:\u00a0<\/p>\n Are any of us the same people we were at our absolute worst moments?<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a very popular radio commentator by the name of Paul Harvey, who said, \u2018Failure is not falling down. Failure is not getting back up,\u2019\u201d Issel said. \u201cI\u2019ve always remembered that. So I would hope that people who read this book know that you\u2019re going to have tough times. But fight through it, and you\u2019ll come out all right on the other end.\u201d<\/p>\n That was then. Now is what you make of it.<\/p>\n John Moore is the Denver Gazette\u2019s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dan Issel\/The memoir<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/John-Moore-column-2026.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"'Dan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/083026-dg-moore-issel-book-jacket-683x1024.jpg\")
\u2018Dan Issel: From Kentucky Wildcat to NBA Legend,\u2019 co-written by Issel and Doug Brunk, is slated for a Nov. 2 release. (University Press pf Kentucky)<\/p>\n![\"Dan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/336e039128a8260ff751feb66d0707a3-scaled.jpg\")
During part of a pre-game ceremony, former Denver Nuggets head coach and player Dan Issel, right, hands the game ball to referee Joey Crawford for tip off as the Nuggets host the Los Angeles Clippers in the first quarter of an NBA game in Denver on March 17, 2014. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/p>\n![\"Dan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/083026-dg-moore-issel-profile-728x1024.jpg\")
Dan Issel as a rookie with the Kentucky Colonels in 1970. (Associated Press)<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/3.-Dan-Issel.jpg\")
Former Denver Rockets player and Denver Nuggets player and later coach Dan Issel in \u2018Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association.\u2019 (Courtesy of Prime)<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/083026-dg-moore-issel-ralph-1024x531.jpg\")
John Moore\u2019s father, Ralph Moore, was The Denver Post\u2019s basketball beat writer from the inception of the Denver Rockets in 1966 until his retirement in 1984. (Courtesy John Moore)<\/p>\n![\"Ralph](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ralph-Moore-uggets-1024x1024.jpg\")
Ralph Moore, father of Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore, covered hundreds of Denver Rockets\/Nuggets games from press row. (Courtesy Moore family)<\/p>\n
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