According to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel, North Carolina is hiring Michael Malone as its next men’s basketball coach.
The move seemingly comes out of nowhere, as the 54-year-old Malone hadn’t been mentioned at all as a potential candidate. He’s been an assistant or head coach in the NBA since 2001 until being fired by the Denver Nuggets last season.
Per Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, UNC was in contact with Baylor’s Scott Drew and Iowa’s Ben McCollum last week. The school wanted to do an in-person interview with McCollum yesterday, but he declined the invite to remain with the Hawkeyes.
UNC ultimately chose against engaging further with Drew and, as other candidates removed their names from consideration, the school shifted its focus to Malone on Sunday.
Malone worked on Greg Kampe’s staff at Oakland during the 1994-95 campaign. Next, he spent three seasons at Providence working under Pete Gillen before going to Manhattan, where he served on Bobby Gonzalez’s staff for two years.
From 2001-05, Malone was an assistant for the New York Knicks. He was an assistant for the Cleveland Cavaliers, New Orleans Hornets and Golden State Warriors from 2005-13.
Malone was hired as the head coach of the Sacramento Kings in 2013. In his first season, the Kings went 28-54 and missed the playoffs. With an 11-13 record early in the 2014-15 campaign, Malone was fired.
Malone was hired as the next head coach of the Denver Nuggets on June 15 of 2015. The Nuggets missed the playoffs in his first three seasons, but their win totals (33, 40 and 46) increased each year.
Denver won the Northwest Division in back-to-back seasons in 2018-19 and 2019-20. In the bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nuggets advanced to the Western Conference finals before falling to the Los Angeles Lakers.
After going 53-29 during the 2022-23 regular season, the Nuggets beat the Miami Heat in the NBA finals to win the franchise’s first championship. However, with only three regular-season games remaining last year, the Nuggets stunningly fired Malone while the team had a 47-32 record.
Malone has a 510-394 career record (56.4%) in 12 seasons as an NBA head coach.
Malone will replace Hubert Davis, who was fired two weeks ago after the Tar Heels blew a 19-point lead in the second half of a first-round loss to VCU in the NCAA Tournament. Davis had been UNC’s head coach for five years, taking it to a pair of Sweet 16 appearances and a runner-up finish in four invites to the NCAA Tournament.
The Tar Heels declined an invitation to the NIT in Davis’s second season.
Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan had been listed as the favorite to become UNC’s next HC at multiple offshore books. He reportedly wanted to wait until the end of Chicago’s season before making a decision.
The Bulls fired their GM Marc Eversley earlier this afternoon.
There’s no debate about whether Malone is an elite coach or not. The only questions will be how he adjusts to coaching younger guys.
UNC and Malone will work rapidly to assemble a staff and hire a GM in the coming days. The portal opens immediately after tonight’s finals of the NCAA Tournament concludes.