By R.L. Bynum
North Carolina has turned to the NBA for its next men’s basketball coach, hiring Michael Malone, according to multiple reports.
The veteran leader guided the Denver Nuggets to the 2023 NBA championship and built a reputation for player development, defensive accountability and steady management of star talent across more than a decade on professional benches.
He’ll try to join another UNC legend, Larry Brown, as the only coaches to win an NBA title and an NCAA title. Brown won an NCAA title with Kansas in 1988 and an NBA title with the Detroit Pistons in 2004.
The move would represent a dramatic stylistic pivot for the Tar Heels, who are searching for stability and a modern roster-building plan after firing Hubert Davis on March 24. UNC’s season ended with another early NCAA Tournament exit, prompting an expansive search that, by early April, had been characterized publicly as prioritizing “fit” over speed.
The timing is key with the transfer portal opening on Tuesday. Matt Norlander of CBS Sports reported that Iowa’s Ben McCollum turned down a chance to interview for the UNC job. Pete Nakos of On3 reported that, according to a source, Malone was a top name in the New Orleans Pelicans coaching search.
Malone, 54, is best known for the long arc he engineered in Denver, where he became the franchise’s all-time coaching wins leader and delivered its first NBA title, culminating in a 2023 championship run in which the Nuggets went 16–4 in the postseason. He was dismissed by Denver late in the 2024–25 season in a stunning late-season change despite the club’s postseason position, finishing that year with a 47–32 record at the time of the move.
He has been a studio analyst for ABC and ESPN since losing his Nuggets job, meaning Carolina will have a second consecutive coach with experience as an ESPN analyst.
Bridget Malone, one of his two daughters, is a sophomore on the UNC volleyball team. That led to Malone spending some time around the UNC basketball program last season.
He was a guest on the “Carolina Insider” podcast in October (below video.)
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Going from the NBA to college does present challenges.
“I think it’s much more difficult to go from pro to college than college to pro as a coach,” former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” Monday afternoon. “When you go from college to pro, you have an organization around you that understands the environment, and has been in it for years. When you go to college, there’s so many nitpicky things.”
In Chapel Hill, Malone would arrive with a résumé unlike the typical “Carolina family” lineage that shaped most previous hires, bringing decades of NBA systems work and a background rooted in the league’s grind-it-out coaching apprenticeship.
Malone is the son of longtime NBA coach Brendan Malone and played college basketball at Loyola (Maryland) before transitioning quickly into coaching, including early stops in high school and college roles and then a steady climb into the NBA.
Malone’s early coaching track included work at Friends School of Baltimore, Oakland University and Providence College, then Manhattan College, before he made the jump to the NBA with the New York Knicks. He spent the 1998–99 season as Coach Pete Gillen’s Director of Men’s Basketball Administration at Virginia in Gillen’s first season in Charlottesville.
His NBA assistant-coaching tenure spanned the Knicks (including a promotion to assistant coach), the Cleveland Cavaliers under Mike Brown, a season with the New Orleans Hornets, and then Golden State, where he worked under Mark Jackson. The Cavaliers years, in particular, put Malone on the bench of a Finals team in 2007 and a 66-win group in 2008–09, an experience that helped shape his approach to building habits in a long season and managing high-level expectations.
Malone’s first head-coaching opportunity came with Sacramento in 2013. He went 28–54 in his first season, then started 2014–15 at 11–13 before being fired in December of that season, a move that was widely covered at the time as surprising given the club’s circumstances and injuries around star DeMarcus Cousins. His Sacramento stint ended with a 39–67 record across 106 games, according to reporting and team/league summaries of that decision. Former UNC forward David Wear was on Malone’s second Kings team.
Denver hired Malone in 2015, and his tenure there became the foundation of his reputation. The Nuggets’ year-by-year record under Malone shows a steady climb from early rebuilding seasons to consistent 50-win caliber performance, a run of playoff appearances and the 2023 title. In the postseason, his Denver teams advanced deep multiple times, including the 2023 championship and a 2024 run that ended with a Game 7 loss in the Western Conference semifinals.
Malone’s Denver teams were built around a superstar hub in Nikola Jokić, with an emphasis on spacing, decision-making and defensive structure.
Malone’s year-by-year record
| Season | Team | Regular-season record | Playoff Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013–14 | Sacramento Kings | 82–28 | |
| 2014–15 | Sacramento Kings | 24–11 | |
| 2015–16 | Denver Nuggets | 82–33 | |
| 2016–17 | Denver Nuggets | 82–40 | |
| 2017–18 | Denver Nuggets | 82–46 | |
| 2018–19 | Denver Nuggets | 82–54 | 7–6 |
| 2019–20 | Denver Nuggets | 73–46 | 9–10 |
| 2020–21 | Denver Nuggets | 72–47 | 4–6 |
| 2021–22 | Denver Nuggets | 82–48 | 1–4 |
| 2022–23 | Denver Nuggets | 82–53 | 16–4 – X |
| 2023–24 | Denver Nuggets | 82–47 | 7–5 |
| 2024-25 | Denver Nuggets | 79–47 |
X- NBA champion
Roster assuming all players with eligibility other than Caleb Wilson, Henri Veesaar and the seven players who entered the transfer portal return, which would put UNC two under the 15-player limit. The class for next season is listed.
| No./ Stars | Class | Player | Pos. | Hgt | Wgt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 star | Freshman | Maximo Adams | SF | 6–7 | 205 |
| 3 star | Freshman | Malloy Smith | CG | 6–5 | 190 |
| 5 star | Freshman | Sayon Keita | C | 7–0 | 215 |
| 4 star | Freshman | Kevin Thomas | W | 6–7 | 190 |
| RS freshman | Cade Bennerman — W | C | 7–0 | 205 | |
| Sophomore | Neoklis Avdalas — X | G | 6–9 | 215 | |
| Sophomore | Isaiah Denis | G | 6–4 | 180 | |
| Sophomore | Matt Able — Y | G | 6–5 | 196 | |
| Senior | Terrence Brown — Z | G | 6–3 | 174 | |
| 4 | Senior | Jaydon Young | G | 6–4 | 200 |
| 15 | Senior | Jarin Stevenson | 4 | 6–10 | 215 |
| Walk-ons | |||||
| 25 | Junior | John Holbrook | 4 | 6–8 | 230 |
| 32 | Senior | Evan Smith | 2 | 6–1 | 195 |
W — Northwestern transfer. X — Virginia Tech transfer; Y — N.C. State transfer; Z — Utah transfer
Michael Malone’s coaching staff: Chuck Martin, Bryan Tibaldi, Sean May and Pat Sullivan; Deon Thompson will be a graduate assistant, and Brandon Robinson will reportedly have a support staff position.
Players who left for the transfer portal
| Player | Class next season | Pos. | Hgt | Wgt | Next school |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luka Bogavac | Senior | W | 6–6 | 215 | Oklahoma State |
| James Brown | Senior | C | 6–10 | 240 | Howard |
| Derek Dixon | Sophomore | G | 6–5 | 200 | Arizona |
| Kyan Evans | Senior | G | 6–2 | 175 | Minnesota |
| Zayden High | Junior | C | 6–10 | 230 | South Florida |
| Jonathan Powell | Junior | G | 6–6 | 190 | Pittsburgh |
| Ivan Matlekovic | Junior | C | 7–0 | 255 |
Key offseason dates
Wednesday (11:59 p.m.) — NCAA early-entry withdrawal deadline
June 13 — Deadline for international players to withdraw from NBA draft and maintain college eligibility
June 23–24 — NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn
Nonconference schedule so far
(Other than the ACC/SEC Challenge, games without links revealed from reporting by Alex Rosinski or Rocco Miller)
(11 of 14 games)
Nov. 2 — vs. Western Carolina
Nov. 6 — vs. Wofford
Nov. 10 — vs. Wyoming
Nov. 13 — vs. Georgia
Nov. 20 — vs. Marshall
Nov. 27 — vs. West Virginia at the Dick Vitale Invitational at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center
Dec. 1 or 2 — vs. SEC team in ACC/SEC Challenge (announced last year on June 12)
Dec. 12 — at Georgetown
Dec. 19 — vs. Kentucky in CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden, 2:30 p.m.
Dec. 21 — vs. The Citadel
November or December — vs. Butler
Photo via nba.com
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