Michael Malone

I think this class of talent, the top five picks, actually top six picks could be stars in the league.

But I wanted to get into the Tar Heels and Mike Malone.

He took over this job.

I remember him as an NBA coach.

A great coach.

and won a championship, NBA championship.

Your thoughts of adding Mike Malone to your Tar Heels.

I loved it.

And that was the major decision that the Nuggets made back in the 2024-25 season.

It wasn't just Michael Malone at that point.

It was obviously Calvin Booth, too.

But after that, Denver didn't necessarily make major changes to their main group either.

So they decided not to do that.

They also decided to stick with David Adelman, whether that was the right call or not.

One of the reasons for that is because Michael Malone still under contract for his extension and.

about four, like 4 million of that is still yet to be paid out.

And so we call it syllabus day, the first day you go to class and you get your syllabi when you're in college.

Coach Michael Malone, or really, brand new Professor Malone, if we're going to stick with the bit, finally gets his whole class into the gym for the first official day of practice.

And apparently, a lot of the national analytics have already given the Tar Heels about a C- grade.

For example, Evan Mia's site came out with their preseason rankings over the weekend.

Yes, he will carry a lot of that this year for North Carolina, but hopefully not as much as he's had to in the past.

beyond my assumption of Carolina working hard to get defensive stuff figured out.

This has been a consistent Michael Malone talking point this off season and practice is where you begin finding out whether all of that like philosophical ideal of defense translates into habit and practicality and actually doing it.

So assignment number two, defense has to become a critical part of Carolina's identity.

So for the most part, with him, the visit news has kind of trickled out within – 48 hours of making a trip or even the day of in a lot of cases.

Like we know that he was at North Carolina this past weekend and I hit up a source who covers the team over there who kind of told me that they're semi-encouraged by Mike Malone, who is also recruiting C.J. Ross or his teammate really, really hard, but that they feel like they're playing catch-up with Arkansas and with Texas in particular, and they're still kind of trying to figure out where Duke falls in the mix there.

But then there wasn't just much that was coming out of the visit just yet other than the standard went well, They enjoyed it, and here we go.

I had another source texting me back and forth a little bit on Sunday who said that Arkansas should be next up on the world tour here and to keep an eye on either this weekend or early next week.

Overrated.

We're full season plus removed now, and people keep reaching back to Mike Malone's defensive structure and the slower tempo as a reference point to his team and what this team is now.

That comparison has an expiration date and we've hit it.

Listen, judge this roster on what it's actually doing under Adleman, not against a ghost.

I love Mike Malone.

I wish Mike Malone was staying and I could sit here and talk to you guys for about 45 minutes about why Mike Malone's system was better, what worked out better.

But we have to stop living in that world of, oh, well, if Mike Malone had this and if Mike Malone had that.

Again, I do it too.

And they lost all of that.

And I think in this zeal to put his stamp on this Denver Nuggets team, Calvin Booth might have... gone so far in the opposite direction, and which created the friction and war with Michael Malone, went so far in the opposite direction, he forgot to take into consideration the actual people who have to play.

And I think as time has progressed, that modus operandi or whatever Calvin had envisioned the Denver Nuggets playing, Was gone.

It was not...