Is Michael Malone the Game-Changer UNC Desperately Needs?

It’s really easy in this day and age to have an immediate thought about UNC’s decision to reportedly hire Michael Malone. The immediate reaction by the fan base was one of shock and an immediate comparison to Bill Belichick.

In short—ON MY GOD WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU DO THIS AGAIN?

But just like I preached on Sunday that patience was key in waiting for the decision to be made, time was needed to let the decision wash over fans, other reaction to pour in, and a true analysis of the decision was made. Once all of that started rolling in, there seemed to be some stepping back from the ledge.

Like many, I wasn’t that happy with the initial decision. With all of the names that had been published as being the subject of the search, it felt a lot like just settling for who was there. Then I sat down and started to think about it a little, and I started to realize that there is some logic to the move.

The big one to me was that if your were hinging your hopes on Billy Donovan, why not take a coach that’s a decade younger and has a track record of success at the highest level as opposed to one who’s been OK, but didn’t have a ring and was in the NBA because college wore him out? I thought about the easy reaction of “he’s just like Bill Belichick who used Tom Brady to get his wins by using Nikola Jokić to get his in Denver.” The problem with this line of thinking is that basketball requires more of a buy-in from a player to a coach. Add in the fact that Brady came to the NFL with a fire to prove he wasn’t a Power Five bust, meanwhile by all accounts Jokić doesn’t view basketball as his life and he still was able to develop him to the point where Denver won a title. There’s a development aspect there you don’t normally see with superstars. Plus, Michael Jordan needed Phil Jackson to get him rings, so he had to at least be able to coach.

Once I hit that point, I saw the two interviews that have made the rounds that showed how he was already becoming connected to Carolina, and I started to understand that unlike Belichick who had the tenuous first words of “Beat Duke,” Malone has had real, adult connection to UNC that means he’s at least a little more familiar with Chapel Hill and the environment here than another coach would have been.