UNC Expected to Hire Michael Malone as Head Basketball Coach

North Carolina is expected to hire experienced NBA coach Michael Malone as the basketball program’s 20^th head coach, sources confirmed to Inside Carolina on Monday. He has been a head coach in the NBA for 12 years and won the 2023 NBA Championship with the Denver Nuggets.

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ESPN first reported the news. Malone’s career NBA record is 510-394 in two seasons with Sacramento and 10 seasons with Denver being let go on April 8, 2025. He has never served as a head coach in the college ranks, although he spent time as an assistant at both Providence and Manhattan before his pro career started in 2001. He’s since worked as a NBA analyst.

On3’s Pete Nakos reported that Malone was a top candidate in the New Orleans Pelicans coaching search, but decided to take the UNC job instead.

The decision comes two weeks after UNC parted ways with Hubert Davis after five years. Carolina focused in on Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Michigan’s Dusty May as primary coaching candidates leading into Final Four week, but Lloyd elected to sign a contract extension with the Wildcats on Friday and May removed his name from consideration this weekend. Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan was a candidate, but the timing didn’t work as his season doesn’t end until April 12, six days after the NCAA transfer portal opens. Iowa’s Ben McCollum declined an interview request, according to an industry source. Significant buyouts for Vanderbilt’s Mark Byington and Texas Tech’s Grant McCasland – at $10 million, according to industry sources – posed challenges as well.

Malone’s limited coaching experience at the college level mirrors UNC’s decision to hire eight-time NFL Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick as its football coach in December 2024. Belichick had never coached in college before. Malone was 112-158 in his first four years as a head coach in the NBA before posting his first winning record in 2017-18. A year later, the Nuggets finished second in the Western Conference with a 54-28 record. He posted a 62.8 winning percentage (398-236) over his final eight seasons in Denver.

Malone’s firing 79 games into Denver’s 2024-25 season was the latest ever in a season for a playoff team. News reports highlighted a toxic relationship between Malone and general manager Calvin Booth as the reason for the dismissal.

Malone’s personality will be quite the contrast for the Tar Heel roster after the Davis era. Malone’s brash style has often led to pointed criticism at his players over the years. After a 125-120 loss to Indiana last April, Malone took accountability for not coaching the team to the best of his ability before turning his ire toward his roster.

“I don’t really care,” Malone said in the postgame press conference. “My job is to be honest, sometimes brutally honest. And the guys that are full of s— won’t hear it. They’ll say, ‘Coach is trippin.’ And the guys who maybe do really care will … they’re not going to go back and watch their minutes. Nobody watches their minutes. Nobody watches film. So we’ll have to show them the film.”

Malone is known in coaching circles as being an incredible basketball mind, according to sources. He crafted a unique offense that worked through NBA MVP Nikola Jokić in Denver, focusing on sharing the ball, player movement and creating good shots.

Malone has some familiarity with Chapel Hill as his daughter, Bridget, is a sophomore on the UNC volleyball team.

Malone shared a story on the Carolina Insider Podcast last fall about attending his first UNC practice and being instructed by a team manager to sit upstairs at the Dean E. Smith Center. Davis motioned for him to come down and sit courtside.

“I had no idea what that meant, though, until I went to dinner with Pat Sullivan,” Malone said. “He said, that’s really a big honor. Because I didn’t coach here, I didn’t play here, I didn’t graduate from Carolina. And that seat is reserved for family. That made me feel even more welcome.”

How quickly Malone is able to put his staff together will be critical, given that the transfer portal opens shortly after the national championship game concludes on Monday night. The portal is open for 15 days, closing on April 21. Players only have to enter the portal during that open period. Once in, players can sign with any program at any point after the window closes.