The North Carolina Tar Heels reportedly intend to hire former NBA champion Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone, sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to ESPN‘s Pete Thamel on Monday (April 6).
“Sources: North Carolina intends to hire longtime NBA coach Michael Malone as the school’s next basketball coach. He’s an NBA Championship coach with the Denver Nuggets from the 2022-23 season and has won 510 games as an NBA head coach,” Thamel wrote on his X account.
Malone is the winningest coach in Nuggets history with a 471-327 regular season record in 10 seasons prior to being fired days before the conclusion of the 2024-25 NBA season. The Nuggets, who were two years removed from winning the NBA champion, ranked fourth in the Western Conference with a 47-32 record at the time, having lost four consecutive games before Malone’s termination.
Malone has since served as a broadcaster for ABC and ESPN‘s NBA coverage as a studio analyst, which included replacing Bob Myers on NBA Countdown. The Tar Heels fired former head coach Hubert Davis, a former standout guard who played at North Carolina from 1988 to 1992, after their first-round NCAA Tournament loss to VCU last month.
Davis guided the Tar Heels to an NCAA Tournament Final appearance in his first season, but has since failed to make it out of the Sweet 16 round and was eliminated in the Round of 64 in back-to-back seasons.