Who is Michael Malone? A look at Malone’s career and Chapel Hill ties

When Michael Malone decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, longtime NBA assistant Brendan Malone, Brendan tried to dissuade him.

“I told him not to get into coaching,” Brendan Malone said in a 2010 interview, per The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer’s archives. “It’s a very insecure profession. I didn’t know if he had the passion.

“Obviously,” Brendan Malone later added, “I was wrong.”

Michael Malone, who is reportedly set to take over as North Carolina’s next head basketball coach, isn’t from the ‘Carolina family.’ But he certainly comes from a basketball family.

Born in Queens, New York, on Sept. 15, 1971, Michael Malone grew up immersed in the game as his father honed his own NBA coaching career.

“I’ve been around the game my whole life,” Malone said in 2005 when he was hired to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ staff, per The Plain Dealer’s archives. “I loved seeing all of those great players. After being exposed to all of that, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. My dad and I share the same love and passion for basketball.”

Malone’s career timeline

Malone graduated from Seton Hall Preparatory School in 1988 and spent a postgraduate year at Worcester Academy during the 1988-89 school year as a captain for the basketball team. He played point guard at Loyola in Baltimore, graduating with a degree in history in 1994.

He broke into coaching immediately, as an assistant at Friends School of Baltimore in 1993–94, then at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where he helped lead the program to a 21–8 record and an NCAA Division II Tournament berth.

Malone then spent three years on Pete Gillen’s staff at Providence College, helping the Friars reach the 1997 NCAA Southeast Regional finals. He followed that with a year in an administrative role at the University of Virginia before jumping to the NBA in 2001.

Malone spent more than two decades in the NBA. He was an assistant with the New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, New Orleans Hornets and Golden State Warriors. His first head coaching job was with the Sacramento Kings, where he was fired in December 2014 after an 11-13 start to the season.

By June 2015, Malone had a new job as head coach of the Denver Nuggets. After roughly a decade with the Nuggets, he compiled a 510–394 record as an NBA head coach, led Denver to the 2022–23 NBA championship, coached two All-Star games (2019 and 2023), and oversaw three MVP seasons for Nikola Jokić (2020-21, 2021-22, 2023-24).

Now, Malone is set to bring that championship pedigree and lifelong devotion to basketball to North Carolina, becoming the first UNC coach since Frank McGuire hired entirely from outside the program’s coaching tree.

But that doesn’t mean Malone is a complete newcomer to Chapel Hill.

Chapel Hill ties

In an interview with Carolina Insider in October, Malone described his experience attending UNC basketball practices in the 2025 preseason.

It made sense that Malone was around Chapel Hill last fall. His daughter, Bridget, is a sophomore for the North Carolina volleyball team.

Malone first met former UNC head coach Hubert Davis and assistant coach Pat Sullivan at a football game during Bridget’s official visit to North Carolina and a bond formed from there.

“The amount of people that were asking Sully for autographs and pictures, and he’s laughing and goes, ‘Man, I didn’t win a world championship — you did,’” Malone said on the Carolina Insider Podcast. “No one knows me here, which is great.”

That much is surely changing now.

And while the UNC community is getting to know Malone, he brings a fair amount of knowledge about North Carolina to this role.

“My father was a high school coach in New York City, and the amount of times I heard him talk about Dean Smith and Carolina from when I was a little kid — I’ve always been a Carolina fan,” Malone said on Carolina Insider. “And when she (Bridget) decided to come here, that made it even that much more special, because now I’m ‘Go Heels’ for everything. I root for all the teams and have fallen in love with Chapel Hill.”

Malone also expressed great respect for Davis and his staff during his October interview.

“From coach to coach, and watching the preparation, what really stands out is how passionate he is,” Malone said. “Obviously he played here, was an assistant here and now a head coach. The amount of love and passion he’s pouring into his players, into every practice, has been really incredible to watch.”

And Malone got a front row seat to some of that early-season development.

Malone was invited by Davis to sit on Roy Williams Court during the first practice he attended in the Dean E. Smith Center. Later, during a dinner with Sullivan, Malone discovered how big of a deal that seat was.

“That seat is reserved for family,” Malone told Carolina Insider. “And that made me feel even more welcome.”

The head coaching role, too, has traditionally been reserved for family at North Carolina.

But, as of Monday, Malone is poised to change that.

This story was originally published April 6, 2026 at 6:12 PM.