UNC Basketball Possible coaches - UNC hires ex-Nuggets HC Michael Malone

Heelsandeers said:
Oh boy

My Nuggets fan friend always complained about how bad Malone was. Cant say I thought about him much beyond that either way. His texts to me today:

“What a joke of a hire. Malone was living off of the creativity of Adelman and the generational brilliance in Jokic”

“His in game adjustments were terrible and nonexistent. He doesn’t develop players and never has”
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Does your Nuggets fan friend know anything about basketball? Who does he think developed Jokic and Murray? It was Malone. Also Peyton Watson and Michael Porter Jr.

If ever there was an NBA superstar who was "developed," it's Jokic.

Malone finished 5 times in the top 10 for NBA coach of the year. His highest ranking was 3rd, but considering he coached the Nuggets for 9 years, 5 times in the top 10 seems notable.
 
It's a pro league now, not worried about college experience, he has the coaching chops, as long as he can be an effective communicator and build good relationships with the players and families. I have no idea if he has those qualities. but hope he does.
 
One of the reasons I have mixed feelings about this hire is definitely because it’s now the 4th major coaching hire (going back to Mack Brown in 2018) where UNC has opted to try the unconventional path. I was really hoping we would finally just follow the formula that most schools take of hiring a younger guy that has a track record of building programs at lower level stops, with UNC being the natural next (and hopefully last) rung on their climb up the coaching ladder. Maybe that’s an unfair way to look at the situation though.
 
Enigma94 said:
How many NBA coaches with no college HC experience have even become college coaches? I'm genuinely asking, it doesn't seem like it would be a long list, but maybe I'm missing something.
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Off the top of my head the only NBA head coaches who had no college head coaching experience before eventually becoming college head coaches are Larry Brown, Eric Musselman, and Mike Woodson. I’m sure there are others I’m not thinking of.
 
NYCBlueBlood said:
So out of curiosity, for somebody who was 100% certain it was time to move on, are you happy now? I don't mean that in an accusing/ bitchy way... I'm grasping at straws to decide myself whether I'm happy. I'm not unhappy now... but don't even know how to start deciding whether this was a good move or not.
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Am I happy that we moved on from Hubert? Yes. 100%.

Am I happy with the Malone hire? No. I would have preferred someone with college experience. But candidly, as hard as this is, I and everyone else need to not rush to judgment so quickly on the hire because we need to see a lot more in terms of how he's willing out the staff, what his vision is, and how quickly he cane get into the portal and be active from a personnel standpoint (including re-recruiting current players and recruits).

I will ignore my own advice on that second point repeatedly over the coming days. But the admin and Malone at least deserve the chance to explain themselves.
 
Enigma94 said:
How many NBA coaches with no college HC experience have even become college coaches? I'm genuinely asking, it doesn't seem like it would be a long list, but maybe I'm missing something.
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According to GPT, it's Zeke and Mike Dunleavy Sr. Both experiments turned out badly, but neither are like this one.

1. Zeke was a failure in every coaching and administrative position he ever had.
2. Dunleavy Sr. was never considered to be a good NBA coach as far as I know -- he was fine, I guess, but not viewed as positively as Malone. More importantly, Dunleavy had been in the NBA for decades and then ended up at Tulane. Tulane. He was suddenly dealing with rosters of players nowhere near as talented or skilled as what he had coached for his whole life. UNC is a lot closer to the NBA than Tulane.

Never mind. GPT has suddenly gotten worse the past couple of weeks and answers without searching way more than it should. It told me Hubert was still UNC's coach.

Another name here is Avery Johnson. Spurs to Bama. Unlike Zeke and Dunleavy, this one is comparable to UNC. It's not quite the same, as Avery wasn't as good as Malone and Bama isn't UNC, but it's closer. And Avery didn't exactly kill it at Bama, but it's Bama and they are inconsistent
 
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rodoheel said:
Am I happy that we moved on from Hubert? Yes. 100%.

Am I happy with the Malone hire? No. I would have preferred someone with college experience. But candidly, as hard as this is, I and everyone else need to not rush to judgment so quickly on the hire because we need to see a lot more in terms of how he's willing out the staff, what his vision is, and how quickly he cane get into the portal and be active from a personnel standpoint (including re-recruiting current players and recruits).

I will ignore my own advice on that second point repeatedly over the coming days. But the admin and Malone at least deserve the chance to explain themselves.
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I've been bitchy about this whole HD thing... but to be clear, I didn't like his hire from the start. I thought it was a really bad idea to force the family route to the point of picking somebody not ready for the role. My point was that once we picked him knowing he was not ready, we had to commit to giving him the time to develop. No point in going down the road of whether or not we more than did that... that's a "mute point" now.

My real point being, now that Mike’s our guy, I'm gonna give him my 100% support for as long as he's our guy... give him a chance, see what he does. Hopefully a heck of a lot better than the last guy...
 
Having someone who hasn't spent a single second coaching a college basketball program in a quarter-century and needing them to be able to navigate the transfer portal and the world of NIL less than 24 hours after getting hired to one of the three best and biggest jobs in college basketball, seems like an abject disaster waiting to happen. But we'll see. I'll obviously support the guy and cheer for him and the Heels, but my gosh, can UNC just one freaking time ever go the conventional route and not try to be the smartest person in the room? The odds are this won't work out. I'm not saying that's what I hope to happen. I'm saying that the odds of success are pretty long for a guy who hasn't been in college basketball in 25 years, who hasn't dealt with all of the political bullshit and booster gladhandling and kissing ass of 19-year-old prima donnas and their families, and who has never spent one second navigating the transfer portal era. If that makes me seem doom-and-gloom, so be it, but I'm calling it like I see it. I don't hate this hire with nearly the vigor with which I opposed the Belichick hire, but I am extremely underwhelmed. Would desperately love to be wrong.
 
Dewey said he was a top-tier target from jump. I guess IC was out of the loop there. Said he’s been blown away with his in-game x and os, from watching him court-side. Said Danny was really happy with the hire.

I hope this works.
 
CFordUNC said:
Having someone who hasn't spent a single second coaching a college basketball program in a quarter-century and needing them to be able to navigate the transfer portal and the world of NIL less than 24 hours after getting hired to one of the three best and biggest jobs in college basketball, seems like an abject disaster waiting to happen. But we'll see. I'll obviously support the guy and cheer for him and the Heels, but my gosh, can UNC just one freaking time ever go the conventional route and not try to be the smartest person in the room? The odds are this won't work out. I'm not saying that's what I hope to happen. I'm saying that the odds of success are pretty long for a guy who hasn't been in college basketball in 25 years, who hasn't dealt with all of the political bullshit and booster gladhandling and kissing ass of 19-year-old prima donnas and their families, and who has never spent one second navigating the transfer portal era. If that makes me seem doom-and-gloom, so be it, but I'm calling it like I see it. I don't hate this hire with nearly the vigor with which I opposed the Belichick hire, but I am extremely underwhelmed. Would desperately love to be wrong.
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But handling the transfer portal and NIL is more like the NBA than traditional recruiting was, no?

The problem with the conventional route is that the misses far outnumber the hits. For every Cignetti or Dusty May, there are countless Fedoras or losers lost to history.

Now, our unconventional approach gave us Belichick and that has not worked out just yet, if it ever will. But what other hires were unconventional? Mack? No. HD? No. those are both established pathways. The Mack path rarely works but it's often tried.
 
SnoopRob said:
All of this.

In fact, I remember a very specific update from IC before the dook game that went something like "it is expected that HD will be retained, although going 0-3 to end the season could affect that expectation."

And we all know what happened over those last 3 games.
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Was that before or after it was known Caleb was injured a second time and out for the season? I said exactly the same before the injury. I haven't bothered to argue the point since the reactions made the point moot. It's worth mentioning that the outcomes in all three were remarkably close to what the metrics predicted in terms of margin but the tortuous path made the appearance an overriding consideration. It didn't take losing a millennial player as someone put it, merely your best.
 
stankeylegjones said:
Dewey said he was a top-tier target from jump. I guess IC was out of the loop there. Said he’s been blown away with his in-game x and os, from watching him court-side. Said Danny was really happy with the hire.

I hope this works.
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Hmm. I believe I questioned the IC reporting, lol. The problem with IC reporting is that there is no reason they should know anything. They know what people choose to tell them, and they are not trustworthy for that reason IMHO.

Who is Danny?
 
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