The North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team is bringing in a former NBA coach — just maybe not the one everyone thought.
North Carolina intends to hire former Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone as the team's next head coach, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Monday.
Previous reports had suggested that Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan was North Carolina's top target for the job.
Instead, the Tar Heels opted not to wait and will instead turn to the 54-year-old Malone, who won 510 games over his career in the NBA and led the Nuggets to a championship in 2022-23.
Denver fired Malone just a week before last season's playoffs despite the team having a 47-32 record.
Malone will take over for the Tar Heels after the team parted ways with head coach Hubert Davis on March 24.
Davis, who replaced legendary UNC coach Roy Williams, coached the Tar Heels for five seasons.
The program has won six NCAA titles and boasts a national-record 21 Final Four appearances, but has just three March Madness wins in the four seasons since an unexpected run to the 2022 national title game in Davis's debut season.
The final blow was an opening-round overtime loss to VCU in this year's NCAA Tournament, in which the Rams rallied from 19 down for the biggest comeback in first-round history, changing the tenor of conversations about Davis's future.
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