{"id":659603,"date":"2026-03-15T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T12:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/659603\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T12:14:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T12:14:00","slug":"meet-nuggets-first-year-assistant-coach-mike-moser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/659603\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Nuggets first-year assistant coach Mike Moser"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lizzy Evans\u2019 view of her big brother is clearer than ever this year. When the Nuggets<\/a> are on TV, her focus is at the top of the frame, where she can usually spot him on Denver\u2019s sideline. Beaming, she takes photos of him through the screen. He\u2019s easier to find now that he\u2019s in the foreground.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s on the front of the bench!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Moser might be the least instantly recognizable of David Adelman\u2019s new assistant coaches this season, next to longtime NBA players like Jared Dudley<\/a> and JJ Barea<\/a>. But that\u2019s only because his road to Denver was a little less conventional, requiring a little extra perseverance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he always had coach qualities in him. He\u2019s so positive. He\u2019s always finding a silver lining in everything,\u201d said Tasha Schwikert Moser, his wife and a former Olympic bronze medal-winning gymnast. \u201cAny team he\u2019s been on, as a coach or player, when he walks into the room, there\u2019s just this energy he brings, and it permeates the room. It impacts his teammates. It impacts his colleagues. It\u2019s motivating, right? I tell him all the time, you can\u2019t teach that. It\u2019s just in you. People want to be around him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most recently, the 35-year-old Moser worked on Ime Udoka\u2019s staff in Houston until Adelman, another fellow Oregonian, offered him a step up last summer \u2014 his first front-of-bench coaching job in the NBA. He\u2019s been assisting Dudley with the Nuggets\u2019 defense this season and working closely with players, who speak highly of his vibrant personality. (Just this week, Cam Johnson credited him as one of the people who\u2019ve kept instilling confidence in him amid a slump.)<\/p>\n

\"MikeMike Moser of the UNLV Rebels brings the ball up the court against Jordan Lewis of the Cal Poly Mustangs during their game at the Thomas & Mack Center on Nov. 22, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller\/Getty Images)
\nA rising star in Portland<\/p>\n

Before he entered the coaching ranks, though, Moser came from a tight-knit family of adoptees in Portland and a journeyman playing career overseas. Born in Dallas, he was adopted and relocated to Portland by Jeanne Moser when he was a month old. Jeanne was a single mom at the time, but she raised five adopted children with help from her sister. They all came from different backgrounds. Moser grew up around siblings from Haiti, Mexico and Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a unique situation,\u201d Lizzy said. \u201cI\u2019ll be 30 next month. You go into the adult world and you start meeting other people and talking to them, and I\u2019m still like, I\u2019ve never really met a family like mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

They hung out at Roses Ice Cream<\/a>, a local family business owned and operated by Jeanne. It had originally belonged to her parents. In 1997, the place shuttered, but she endeavored to bring it back a decade later in northeast Portland. She gave it a second life for a few years before it closed again, selling burgers and shakes in cozy confines with help from her children and other relatives. Posters of the \u201cMichael,\u201d the rising star athlete of the family, were plastered on the walls.<\/p>\n

Throughout middle school and high school, his schedule was so packed with basketball games and practices and camps that he got out of working shifts. \u201cBut one thing about Michael,\u201d Lizzy said, laughing, \u201cis he was there eating.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was the celebrity on the walls and the most loyal customer in the establishment. Most Division I recruits hold signing day ceremonies at their high schools to announce their college plans. Moser signed to play at UCLA while he was at Roses.<\/p>\n

He made vital future connections while making a name for himself at Grant High School, winning a state title in 2008. He was a top player on the AAU team founded by Udoka<\/a>, a local mentor. One of his rival high schools was coached by Adelman. \u201cWe had some really good battles back in the day,\u201d Moser said. \u201cHe loves to trap people. He would trap the hell out of me. So occasionally, they would sneak out a win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OregonOregon forward Mike Moser (0) locks up Mississippi forward Anthony Perez (13) as they try for a rebound in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Oxford, Miss., on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2013. (AP Photo\/Rogelio V. Solis)
\nAn international journey<\/p>\n

Moser had dreams of playing in the NBA. Injuries interrupted them. After a strong 2011-12 season at UNLV, he decided to stay in school one more year rather than take his chances in the draft. \u201cI suffered an injury that kind of messed up my ability to shoot for the next year,\u201d he remembers. He got to be part of an NCAA Tournament team that season alongside No. 1 overall draft pick Anthony Bennett, but his shooting splits declined. He transferred for the second time in 2013, picking Oregon, \u201cand I spent the next year trying to prove I could shoot and could play again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moser found his way into a Summer League deal with the Celtics after going undrafted out of college. He played well with Marcus Smart and Kelly Olynyk, earning a training camp invite. He turned it down. The money was better overseas than it would be in the NBA D League. He signed a contract in Lithuania, beginning a five-year career of hopping from country to country.<\/p>\n

\u201cEastern Europe was very interesting. I thought, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m gonna go here and dominate.\u2019 And that was absolutely not the case,\u201d Moser said. \u201cI\u2019m a tempo guy. I like getting up and down. And this was a very slow, old-school, methodical. Throw it in the post. Split action. Not too different from how we play (in Denver) now. \u2026 Eastern European coaches tend to be a little tougher than the West, that\u2019s for sure. Funnily enough, some Serbian coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had multiple coaches that didn\u2019t speak any English. \u2026 Maybe your teammates would help. But sometimes they wouldn\u2019t, because you\u2019re coming for their spot, and they weren\u2019t really interested in helping you take the food off their family\u2019s table.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the absence of direct translation, Moser learned to abide by the universal languages of basketball and anger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember thinking, \u2018I don\u2019t know what we\u2019re doing. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. I just know I get yelled at when I do this, and I get yelled at when I do that,\u2019 so stay away from those things,\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n

Back in the U.S., he and Tasha were starting a life together. They had met at UCLA, where he rode the bench for a year and Tasha was an NCAA champion, then started dating a couple of years later when they crossed paths again at UNLV. Tasha was in law school, so she couldn\u2019t follow him to Europe. After the first year of long-distance, he proposed.<\/p>\n

They were in and out of long-distance for the first few years of their marriage, as she began her law career and he played stints in Israel, Finland and France. Training camps for most of his teams were held in late August or September.<\/p>\n

\u201cI usually would skip that and just take the fine, just to be home,\u201d Moser said. \u201cAnd you\u2019d hop back around Christmastime. Maybe there would be a break in between if you were lucky, with the FIBA windows. \u2026 But she was doing all that, getting her education, navigating being a first-time mom, having her husband on the other side of the world. So that was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was still trying to find a path toward an NBA career. One offseason, he played Summer League with the Hawks. Another, he went to Phoenix for a training camp opportunity, only to tear his meniscus there. He suffered an ACL injury back in Europe, adding to the sense that he might be out of luck.<\/p>\n

Ironically, it was Tasha who talked him into prolonging his career one more season in 2018, when they were juggling two children in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe season before \u2014 at that point, he\u2019d had the two knee surgeries \u2014 he was like, \u2018I feel like I\u2019m in pain all the time, and it\u2019s starting to become not fun,’\u201d she recalled. \u201c\u2018And you and the kids are back in the States. Going back and forth is tough. I feel like I\u2019m missing all the moments and all the firsts.\u2019 I remember sitting down with him. I was like, \u2018Look, right now you have an injury and you\u2019re in pain, and it\u2019s easy to say you\u2019re done because you\u2019re going through a low time, a lull. But you need to call it quits when everything is going good. Because I don\u2019t want you at 35 or 40 to have regrets that you didn\u2019t keep going and finish on your own terms.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Moser took her advice. He signed on for one more year in Bourg-en-Bresse, France. His health didn\u2019t abandon him this time. He played well. About halfway through the season, Tasha remembers him telling her, \u201cI think I\u2019m ready.\u201d He was more at peace with it. A possible career in coaching was on his mind. Udoka was an assistant in San Antonio at the time, eager to help Moser get in the door. He applied online for a player development job with the Mavericks instead to land his first NBA gig.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had this thing. He was strong on, \u2018I want to get the opportunity myself,’\u201d Tasha said. \u201cHe knew he had connections, but \u2018I want to say I started out on my own.\u2019 \u2026 He was proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HeadHead coach David Adelman of the Denver Nuggets sits on the bench with assistant coaches Mike Moser and Jared Dudley during the third quarter against the Houston Rockets at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado on Monday, December 15, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)
\nMoving up the coaching ranks<\/p>\n

It was the beginning of another nomadic half-decade that led him to Denver. Moser\u00a0lost his job in Dallas when the pandemic hit. He forayed into women\u2019s college basketball, joining the staff at Oregon. A week after he moved his family there, Udoka tried to hire him in Boston. \u201cTasha said call back in a year,\u201d Moser told him. Udoka did, finally uniting them. Only another Portland hoops figure could eventually pull Moser away from Udoka in Houston.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew Ime since I was 14 years old. I think I met DA when I was 16. \u2026 These guys were pouring into the city and pouring into kids,\u201d Moser said. \u201cIf you look around the league, there are a lot of coaches from Portland, a lot of players from Portland. We\u2019re not a huge city. We\u2019ve just got a lot of people that really care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moser wants to pay it forward in the same community. While he was playing overseas, he also briefly started a nonprofit to run basketball camps for underserved youth in the city. It didn\u2019t last long, but Tasha says they\u2019d love to try again someday when they have more time to put into it.<\/p>\n

Lizzy still dreams of reopening Roses eventually. It\u2019s been more than a decade since it closed for the second time. Jeanne Moser died in 2024. The adoptees she brought together are still close. \u201cI grew up with kids I didn\u2019t know, but today, I call them by brothers and sisters,\u201d Moser said. He and Lizzy still go on trips together when they have time.<\/p>\n

Tasha and the children (now three) remain situated in Houston, where she\u2019s an associate AD leading name, image and likeness advancement at Rice University. She had just started the job a couple of months before the Nuggets hired Moser. \u201cHe\u2019s living his dreams,\u201d she said, \u201cbeing an NBA coach.\u201d He\u2019s been getting weekend visits.<\/p>\n

He knew what he was signing up for. He\u2019s been a journeyman before. And the commute from Las Vegas to Lithuania is a little easier than it used to be.<\/p>\n

Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lizzy Evans\u2019 view of her big brother is clearer than ever this year. When the Nuggets are on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[2276,7,1828,217,765,2102,250,301,187,3943,766,3636,1035,165,326,252,6,302,687,66,9919],"class_list":["post-659603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-nuggets","tag-ball-arena","tag-basketball","tag-cam-johnson","tag-college-basketball","tag-colorado","tag-contract","tag-david-adelman","tag-denver","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-denvernuggets","tag-front-range","tag-injuries","tag-injury","tag-latest-headlines","tag-marcus-smart","tag-more-nuggets-news","tag-nba","tag-nuggets","tag-portland","tag-sports","tag-the-denver-post"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116233141673057831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}