Joe Belmont
NCAA & NIBL Guard | ABA Head Coach | Colorado Sports Hall of Famer
Joe Belmont played college basketball at Duke University, under head coach Harold Bradley. He played 4 seasons at Duke and averaged 13.0 points a game. He was selected in the 1956 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia Warriors with the 39th pick in the 5th round, but he never played a single game in the NBA, opting to stay at Duke for one more year to mentor the freshmen team. He later resumed his playing career with the Denver-Chicago Truckers of the National Industrial Basketball League. He played under head coach Johnny Dee and played until the National Industrial Basketball League winded down in 1966.
In 1970, he was hired as the head coach of the American Basketball Association’s Denver Rockets, a position he held for as season and a half. He shared ABA Coach of the Year honors in 1970 with Bill Sharman of the Utah Stars.
In 2005 Belmont was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. On January 6, 2019, Coach Belmont passed away.
Denver Rockets (1969-1970)
After the disbandment of the Truckers, Belmont stayed in Denver and joined the ABA’s Denver Rockets as a scout and their director of marketing, which at the time had its own fancy title “Ticket Salesmen”. His experience was beyond comparable to the rest of Denver’s front office as he was one of the only ones who actually played basketball as a career, which led to him becoming the head coach of the team on December 9, 1969, replacing John McClendon.
After losing his first game, the Rockets won 15 in a row, finishing out that season going 42-14 in his first season as a coach and with an overall record of 51-33 to win the ABA Western Division. Belmont and Utah Stars head coach Bill Sharman was awarded coach of the year for that season. and later reached the second round of the playoffs, but lost to the Oakland Oaks, who later progressed to become the 1969 ABA champions. Amongst the roster were Spencer Haywood, Julius Kaye, Byron Beck, Larry Jones, Lonnie Wright, Jeff Congdon and Walt Piatkowski.
Despite the first great season, Belmont was fired the following season after a 3-10 start, he was replaced by Stan Albeck. When the American Basketball Association merged with the NBA in 1976, Belmont had the 6th most coaching wins in league history with a record of 45-25.
- Spencer Haywood
- Future 1980 NBA champion
- 1970 ABA Most Valuable Player
- Future 4× NBA All-Star
- 1970 ABA All-Star
- ABA All-Star Game MVP
- 2× All-NBA First Team
- All-ABA First Team
- 2× All-NBA Second Team
- ABA Rookie of the Year
- ABA All-Rookie First Team
- 1970 ABA scoring champion
- 1970 ABA rebounding leader
- ABA All-Time Team
- Larry Jones (4× ABA All-Star & 3× All-ABA First Team)
- Byron Beck (2× ABA All-Star (1969, 1976) & No. 40 retired by Denver Nuggets)
- Julius Keye (1971 ABA All-Star)
- Walt Piatkowski (ABA 1969 All-Rookie, & 2× First-team All-MAC, & 1967 Second-team All-MAC)
- Jeff Congdon
- Lonnie Wright