UNC Basketball Possible coaches - UNC hires Mike Malone

Dealing with the portal being your first task as a college coach is really falling in to the deep end of the pool. Hopefully he fares well and gets up to speed immediately.
 
It’s absolutely bizarre. After listening to Hansbrough, Malone has complete support from former players. They are super high on him.

So we somehow managed to hire outside the family while allowing the family to make the decision anyway?

What the fuck are we doing?
 
I guess if I’m looking for any silver lining, it’s certainly not a splash hire. And maybe that means some thoughtful consideration went into it. That would be a big difference from the Belichick hire. Hope it turns out to be a success.
 
This probably does make it more likely that at least one of our current assistants gets retained (if they want to be retained) since Malone doesn't have an existing staff to bring with him.
 
PTOHeel said:
I guess if I’m looking for any silver lining, it’s certainly not a splash hire. And maybe that means some thoughtful consideration went into it. That would be a big difference from the Belichick hire. Hope it turns out to be a success.
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I dunno. I'm worried "he's right there not doing anything and doesn't have a buyout" was a big part of the logic.
 
I'm gonna wait and see. I was not in favor of firing coach Davis and still think it was a mistake, but I understand why the decision was made. This could end up being a great hire, or another colossal mistake. Who he chooses to be on his staff will give us an early clue.
 
People seem worked up over the portal element, but it's really just recruiting with a checkbook. Give him a top ten NIL budget and as long as his personality isn't a dry piece of toast or raging lunatic it shouldn't be much of an issue. I don't know the guy from Adam, but I also don't understand people wanting to jump ship over this hire. Belichick? Sure. That guy is a grade A asshole and embarrassment with his side piece who nobody else wanted. But is Malone really that different than Donovan? Both NBA pedigrees, Donovan had collegiate experience but that was a long time ago. If the guy can coach then it could be a good hire.
 
Milk and Cookies said:
I got a friend that works production for ESPN. I'm waiting on him to get back to me with any insight on what his coworkers think of him.
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He says
"Great coach. Dad was a well-respected coach. Super prepared. Gets a lot out of players. Think he didn't get along with Jokic. Could be a great hire. X's and Os and in-game adjustments he's as good as there is. Will just see how he relates to 17yo young men."
 
Enigma94 said:
People seem worked up over the portal element, but it's really just recruiting with a checkbook. Give him a top ten NIL budget and as long as his personality isn't a dry piece of toast or raging lunatic it shouldn't be much of an issue. I don't know the guy from Adam, but I also don't understand people wanting to jump ship over this hire. Belichick? Sure. That guy is a grade A asshole and embarrassment with his side piece who nobody else wanted. But is Malone really that different than Donovan? Both NBA pedigrees, Donovan had collegiate experience but that was a long time ago. If the guy can coach then it could be a good hire.
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Malone seems like a good guy. Not a raving lunatic but is very competitive.
 
Enigma94 said:
People seem worked up over the portal element, but it's really just recruiting with a checkbook. Give him a top ten NIL budget and as long as his personality isn't a dry piece of toast or raging lunatic it shouldn't be much of an issue. I don't know the guy from Adam, but I also don't understand people wanting to jump ship over this hire. Belichick? Sure. That guy is a grade A asshole and embarrassment with his side piece who nobody else wanted. But is Malone really that different than Donovan? Both NBA pedigrees, Donovan had collegiate experience but that was a long time ago. If the guy can coach then it could be a good hire.
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Yes, he's way different than Donovan. Donovan spent two decades coaching at this level and was massively successful doing so. Mike Malone hasn't "recruited" anyone in 25 years, and it may well have been 50 years for how different the landscape is now.

I don't doubt Malone's in-game coaching chops. But that is a very small part of running a college program. And the thing that got him fired from his last NBA job - like a week before the playoffs started - was not being able to see eye-to-eye with the GM. I think he was probably more in the right on that argument, but the fact that ownership fired both of them days before the playoffs, in the middle of Jokic's prime, tells you that everyone was absolutely fed up with the leadership team not being able to get along.
 
Calheel said:
This is a good test of my theory that when a coaching replacement is named, there is great dissension for the first 24 hours, but within a week, virtually everyone has come around and thinks it is a great hire.

So, I'll come back to this thread next week and take everyone's temperature on my sociology theory.
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You can go ahead and take my temperature right now. I’ll be the first to admit my fickle nature. I nearly always come around to the “glass half full” side of things with regards to UNC basketball. I remember hating the Hubert hire, but a week later had talked myself into how good it might be and became generally excited after hearing his plans to modernize the offense.

A week from now, I’ll have talked myself into what a great hire this was and how excited I am for our new coach.

Two years from now I’m sure I’ll be screaming for his ouster.
 
Here's Claude's assessment, "warts and all."


The case FOR the hire
Malone is an NBA Championship coach with the Denver Nuggets from the 2022–23 season and has won 510 games as an NBA head coach. Sports Illustrated That's a legitimate pedigree, and it's a credential no one in college basketball right now can match. UNC gets to walk into every living room and say "our coach won an NBA title."

At his core, Malone is known as a defense-first, team-oriented leader. He values preparation, communication, and loyalty, and is known for his passionate and fiery demeanor. Vocal Media Those traits translate well to a Carolina program that, under Dean Smith and Roy Williams, was built on exactly that kind of culture — accountability, togetherness, and toughness.

His player development résumé is genuinely elite. He played a crucial role in Nikola Jokić's evolution into a superstar, and helped develop Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and other young talents into key contributors. Thistradinglife In today's NIL world, where elite recruits are essentially evaluating programs the way free agents evaluate franchises, the ability to credibly sell NBA development is currency. Malone has a lot of it.

He also has deeper ties to UNC than most people realize. Malone is a proud UNC Volleyball parent — his daughter plays at Carolina Tar Heel Times — and he has spoken warmly about the program in past interviews. That's not nothing. It signals genuine affinity for the institution.

And critically, before his NBA career, Malone spent years in college coaching — at Providence, Oakland University, Manhattan College, and the University of Virginia. Wikipedia So this isn't a pure NBA-to-college leap into the unknown.

The legitimate concerns
This is where it gets real. The NBA-to-college transition is brutal, and history is not particularly kind to it. The game is fundamentally different — and the NIL/transfer portal era has made college basketball more operationally complex than ever.

College coaches now follow a sequence when building rosters: re-recruit their own players, hit the transfer portal, consider international recruits, and only then recruit high school seniors. Pro Skills Basketball This is a completely different skill set than NBA roster management, and it requires deep relationships in the grassroots/AAU recruiting world that Malone simply hasn't been building for the past decade.

Today's college hires aren't solely based on on-court accomplishments — they're also evaluated on the ability to manage NIL collectives, leverage data analytics, and retain players in the transfer portal era. News-articles Malone has zero track record in any of that.

There's also the matter of why he's available. There were reports of locker room friction near the end of his tenure in Denver, with some players reportedly feeling that certain individuals were receiving preferential treatment. DWB That's worth noting when you're hiring someone to manage 18-to-22-year-olds who have unprecedented leverage to walk via the portal.

And then there's the structural issue: the new reality of college basketball essentially requires something resembling a mini NBA front office, with compartmentalized roles for recruiting, scouting, and player development. Babcock Hoops Whether UNC is willing to build that infrastructure around Malone — and whether he knows how to operate within it — is a real open question.

The bottom line
Malone is a good coach — that's not in question. But "good coach" and "good hire" aren't the same thing.

The argument for him is essentially: Carolina is a destination program with elite NIL resources. Malone's credibility as an NBA champion and elite developer can attract top transfer portal talent and recruits who want to reach the league. You hire him to be the face, surround him with a staff deeply embedded in the recruiting ecosystem, and let him do what he does — coach basketball and develop players.

The argument against is equally real: the last time a pure NBA guy made this jump work at a blue-blood program... it's a short list. The recruiting infrastructure has to be built almost from scratch, and UNC is already behind after whatever roster upheaval comes post-Hubert Davis.

If UNC gives him the support structure — a veteran recruiting coordinator, a GM-style operator running the NIL collective relationships, and a staff with grassroots contacts — this hire has real upside. If they expect him to figure out the portal and NIL world on the fly, it could get ugly fast.

I'd call it a high-ceiling, meaningful-risk hire. Which, honestly, given the current state of the program, might be exactly what UNC needed to swing for.
 
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