{"id":703107,"date":"2026-04-07T10:53:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703107\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:53:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:53:29","slug":"unc-hires-michael-malone-as-coach-nikola-jokic-nuggets-react","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703107\/","title":{"rendered":"UNC hires Michael Malone as coach: Nikola Jokic, Nuggets react"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikola Jokic<\/a> and the Nuggets saluted former coach Michael Malone<\/a> as he transitioned to the college game Monday with a shocking move to North Carolina<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for him,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cProbably a little bit different. Was he ever a coach in college? No?\u201d<\/p>\n

Malone was in fact a college hoops assistant coach throughout the 1990s<\/a>, before he entered the NBA, Jokic was informed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d the Nuggets\u2019 three-time MVP center joked.<\/p>\n

News of UNC men\u2019s basketball hiring Malone to replace Hubert Davis was the talk of Ball Arena on Monday. Denver\u2019s only Tar Heel, Cam Johnson, joked that he had already been asked for his opinion dozens of times when the topic came up with reporters. He was traded to the Nuggets three months after they fired Malone in 2025, so he was more curious to hear what his teammates had to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t really know Coach Malone,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI came 17 games too late. But I\u2019ve been talking to the guys, and they think that he\u2019s gonna be a good fit for what we\u2019ve got going on back there. I wish him the best. I\u2019ll probably connect with him soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s veteran players were able to congratulate him more thoughtfully, speaking from experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish him all the luck,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a little bit different just because he was coaching NBA for how many years \u2014 12, 15 years? But he definitely has the poise and the brain to do it. I think he\u2019s gonna do a really good job because he can actually coach the guys. He\u2019s gonna have time to coach the guys and teach them how to play the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The end of Malone\u2019s 10-year Nuggets tenure was abrupt and awkward,\u00a0as his voice grew stale in the locker room and his intense personality grated on players, as team and league sources detailed<\/a> to The Denver Post last year. He was fired with three games remaining in the regular season, along with former general manager Calvin Booth.<\/p>\n

Still, Malone left Denver as the winningest coach in Nuggets history with 471 regular-season victories and the franchise\u2019s only NBA championship in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cShoutout to Coach Malone,\u201d said Jamal Murray, the veteran star guard to whom Malone was fiercely loyal<\/a>. \u201cI think he\u2019ll be great. I think he\u2019ll be a great college coach. I think his daughter is there as well. So I think it\u2019s a win-win for him, and I think he\u2019ll enjoy his next chapter of his coaching career.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s gonna be good for him,\u201d Aaron Gordon added. \u201cI think it\u2019ll be a change of pace. I think he\u2019s gonna be a great coach for that program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jokic, who played his amateur hoops in Serbia, isn\u2019t as familiar with the specifics and idiosyncrasies of NCAA basketball as most of his teammates. He\u2019s occasionally roped in when he falls in love with a skilled big man like North Carolina State\u2019s DJ Burns two years ago.<\/p>\n

But in general, he\u2019ll likely be rooting on Malone from afar. As the sport\u2019s preeminent offensive player, he can\u2019t find it within himself to stay focused for all 30 seconds of the shot clock.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t understand why the rules are different,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s so slow, and they just go around and \u2019round and \u2019round. But it\u2019s still basketball. It\u2019s a little bit different. \u2026 I just don\u2019t understand the 30 seconds. It\u2019s just too much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets saluted former coach Michael Malone as he transitioned to the college game Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[877,2276,7,4187,1828,765,301,187,3943,766,762,165,4231,252,6,231,253,1773,14520,302,3171,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-703107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-ball-arena","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-calvin-booth","12":"tag-cam-johnson","13":"tag-colorado","14":"tag-denver","15":"tag-denver-nuggets","16":"tag-denvernuggets","17":"tag-front-range","18":"tag-jamal-murray","19":"tag-latest-headlines","20":"tag-michael-malone","21":"tag-more-nuggets-news","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-ncaa","24":"tag-nikola-jokic","25":"tag-north-carolina","26":"tag-north-carolina-state","27":"tag-nuggets","28":"tag-serbia","29":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116363054617572652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}