Michael Malone Put Together Perfect Staff to Show He Cares About UNC in First Season

College basketball staffs are just as important as anything else in the country, even if someone wants to say that having more NIL money than the next team is the biggest factor. 

The harsh reality of college sports today is that teams need to spend a lot of money on their roster, but they also need a coaching staff they can trust to develop players, recruit, and handle other factors. North Carolina did a very good job of that by hiring former NBA champion Michael Malone, who coached Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets just a few years ago and won it all. 

Malone has done a lot of good for the program in his first few months, and everything suggests things are only going to get better. He also made it a priority to have an above-average coaching staff. 

He recently spoke to reporters about why he did what he did with his staff, and he believes that he has one of the best in the country. He wanted to bring in some familiar faces who he has worked with in the past, but he also wanted to keep the Carolina tradition alive by bringing in guys with ties to the university.

“I think our staff is amazing,” Malone said, per On3. “First off is the connection to Carolina. Pat Sullivan, 1993 under Dean Smith wins a championship. Sean May 2005, Deon Thompson 2009, and then Brandon Robinson 2017. All part of championship teams, so not just that they played here, they know what it takes to win at the highest level…

“Then obviously it was important for me to bring in some of my people, the guys that I’ve gotten to know,” Malone said. “Chuck Martin, my first hire, somebody I’ve known for almost 30 years, and Chuck has been invaluable as my associate head coach and everything we’ve done since we got the job. We hit the ground running.”

If there's one thing I'm not worried about with Malone, it's the fact that I know that he's going to be more than fine at bringing in coaches who have been around this game for quite some time and understand what it takes to win in college basketball. 

I would assume that if Malone called nearly every possible assistant coach in the country, that coach would be very interested in taking the job. Malone can help guys get to the NBA and give them a chance to coach at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, especially in basketball.