North Carolina wanted a \u201csuperstar\u201d as its next coach.<\/p>\n
And they appear to have found one in former NBA championship coach Michael Malone.<\/p>\n
Malone, who led the Denver Nuggets to the 2023 NBA championship, replaces Hubert Davis<\/a>, who was fired last month after a second straight NCAA Tournament first-round exit.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Bridget Malone, Michael\u2019s daughter, is a sophomore on the North Carolina volleyball team<\/a>, and Michael spent time around the men\u2019s basketball program this past season.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m loving this,” former North Carolina and NBA standout Danny Green said on \u201cInside the NBA. \u201dI had Michael Malone as a rookie at Cleveland. He was a great X\u2019s & O\u2019s offensive juggernaut to me, so this is a great hire. I love the situation for him and for us [UNC]. This is the start of something new.”<\/p>\n \u201cMike will bring all the necessary skills that he has developed over the years to put UNC on track to compete for a national championship,\u201d said legendary former Seton Hall Prep coach Bob Farrell, who coached Malone in high school. \u201cPeople don\u2019t realize that Michael saw [Nikola] Jokic’s potential years before anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The news was first reported by ESPN.<\/a><\/p>\n Between North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick (6 Super Bowls) and Malone, those two coaches have seven major championship rings.<\/p>\n Malone will the fifth new ACC head coach in 2026-27 along with Luke Murray (Boston College), Scott Cross (Georgia Tech), Justin Gainey (NC State) and Gerry McNamara (Syracuse).<\/p>\n North Carolina had been linked to several other big names, including current Chicago Bulls and former Florida coach Billy Donovan and a number of high-profile college coaches like Arizona\u2019s Tommy Lloyd, Michigan\u2019s Dusty May, Iowa State\u2019s TJ Otzelberger and Alabama\u2019s Nate Oats. All of them either signed extensions with their current schools or explicitly said they were not leaving their current schools.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Malone, 54, is a Queens, N.Y. native and the son of late former NBA coach Brendan Malone. He has a career record of 510-394 with the Nuggets and Sacramento Kings.<\/p>\n Malone has never been a college head coach and last coached in college with Manhattan from 1999-2001.<\/p>\n He spent this past season as an ESPN analyst.<\/p>\n Malone\u2019s family, originally from Queens, N.Y., moved to West Orange, N.J., from Rhode Island in 1986 after his father was given a job as a Knicks<\/a> assistant coach under Hubie Brown<\/a>. The younger Malone joined a Seton Hall Prep team that was coming off a state championship, and, with unrealistic expectations about his abilities, believed he should have \u201cbeen playing more or featured more.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Eventually, Bob Farrell<\/a> pulled the angry young point guard aside and told him, \u201cMalone, you\u2019re shaking the foundations of Seton Hall Prep.\u201d<\/p>\n