North Carolina is expected to hire former Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone as its next men’s basketball coach, a source briefed on negotiations said Monday.
Malone, 54, had been on North Carolina’s list of candidates for at least a week, but gained serious traction over the last 24 hours after top college options — namely Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Michigan’s Dusty May — removed themselves from consideration. Malone has never been a college head coach and last worked in college as an assistant at Manhattan in 2001, but has 12 seasons of NBA head-coaching experience with the Sacramento Kings and Denver Nuggets, winning a championship with the latter in 2023.
Malone will replace Hubert Davis, who UNC let go on March 24 after five inconsistent seasons, including a first-round NCAA Tournament exit this March.
ESPN first reported Malone as UNC’s expected hire.
North Carolina also discussed its vacancy with Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan, multiple program and industry sources said, but felt it could not wait for Donovan from a timing perspective. Donovan wanted to coach out the rest of the NBA regular season, which runs through Sunday, five days after college basketball’s transfer portal opens.
That delay would’ve put UNC at a significant disadvantage in building next year’s roster, especially without a firm commitment from Donovan that he would take the job.
Instead, the Tar Heels pivoted hard to Malone, who spent the last 10 months as an ESPN analyst after being fired by the Nuggets late in the 2024-25 season.
Malone is well-respected for his X’s and O’s acumen, including how he accentuated the versatile talents of three-time MVP Nikola Jokic. Malone’s basketball mind is one of the key reasons, according to program sources, that former UNC coach Roy Williams has blessed the hire. Malone also isn’t a complete outsider in Chapel Hill after spending time around the program last season — especially when visiting his daughter, who plays volleyball at UNC.
That said, for as well-respected as Malone is in basketball circles, his college experience is limited to short stints at Oakland, Providence, Virginia and Manhattan from 1994 to 2001.
That makes his staff hires all the more important, as Malone will need to surround himself with people who both understand UNC and the larger college landscape: one increasingly dominated by the transfer portal, NIL and revenue sharing. Multiple program and industry sources expect Malone to retain at least one member of Davis’ staff — likely Sean May, a key voice on Davis’ staff who starred on the Tar Heels’ 2005 championship team. Former assistant coach Pat Sullivan, who coached for the New York Knicks prior to joining Davis’ staff, is also a candidate to return.
One advantage Malone has from a recruiting standpoint is his prior connection with prominent international agent Misko Raznatovic, who represents Jokic. Raznatovic — who has attended the last two Final Fours — represents many of the top international prospects attempting to come play college basketball, and a strong relationship with him is paramount to tapping into that talent base in future years. Raznatovic counted multiple members of Illinois’ Final Four team amongst his clients.
From a bigger-picture standpoint, Malone is the second major coaching hire North Carolina has made from the professional ranks in 17 months. The school hired six-time Super Bowl winner Bill Belichick in December 2024 as its football coach, which represented a major philosophical shift within the school’s athletic department. UNC made record financial commitments to Belichick with the hopes he would bring the Tar Heels’ football program into the modern era, believing his professional experience was well-suited for handling the transfer portal and player payroll negotiations.
The process that yielded Belichick, though, was fractured from the start, with UNC operating two de facto searches simultaneously: One by athletic director Bubba Cunningham and another by the school’s behind-the-scenes power brokers, including chancellor Lee Roberts and former school trustee John Preyer.
Two sources familiar with this search said that North Carolina’s process was much better, even though it resulted in hiring another longtime pro coach. Cunningham and incoming athletic director Steve Newmark — a former NASCAR executive who is set to succeed Cunningham this summer — worked together throughout the process, and consulted with an advisory group of stakeholders.
Because of that collaborative effort, multiple sources expect UNC’s boosters and donors — some of whom met Malone last season when he was around the program — to unite behind him from the jump and provide the necessary financial backing to compete. Malone’s lack of a buyout — which UNC would have been required to pay to hire a sitting college head coach — was also an enticing factor.
Diminishing financial support from UNC donors was one of the main reasons the program moved on from Davis, The Athletic previously reported, but that is not expected to be the case for Malone.
UNC’s roster cost about $16 million in combined revenue-sharing and NIL payments last season, according to a source familiar with negotiations, meaning the Tar Heels’ roster was believed to be one of the 10 most expensive in the entire sport.
With the transfer portal opening Tuesday, that financial support will be immediately necessary if Malone hopes to hit the ground running to build a contender in his first season in Chapel Hill.