Michael Malone an Intriguing Tiago Splitter Replacement for Blazers

The Portland Trail Blazers are winning as much as they've been losing this season, particularly hitting their stride in late December and January to climb into the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference's playoff picture.

That there's even discussion of the postseason means Tiago Splitter has done a bang-up job during the 2025-26 season, but that doesn't mean he's the best option to lead the team in the post-Chauncey Billups era.

For one, we don't know if this good fortune will continue. While the Blazers look like a likely NBA Play-In Tournament participant, there's plenty of time between now and April, and a February 5 trade deadline/March buyout deadline to get through. Who knows what the competition will do to keep up in the West?

Secondly, this team shouldn't be resigned to Tiago Splitter if a proven winner comes along. Perhaps he'd accept an assistant role again if there aren't any head coaching options that emerge in the offseason.

There's one out there who's been out of a job for a bit, despite having won a championship in the last three years.

Michael Malone is One of the Few Available Tiago Splitter Upgrades

Michael Malone's firing will always be one of the stranger things the Denver Nuggets organization has ever done. Not long after a championship, the team fired him over internal politics, ignoring his success with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and instead embracing a new organizational structure.

Malone is out there for the taking, being that he hasn't had a job since. Beyond what he did in Denver, the Queens, New York native was a DeMarcus Cousins whisperer on a Sacramento Kings team that lacked other weapons in the mid-2010s.

The Blazer's Edge's Dave Deckard floated the idea of Malone, but also mentioned former Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau as an option.

"...the Blazers haven’t had an established coach since Terry Stotts was fired five years ago. Their record in that stretch has been 139-233, a 37.4% winning rate. It’s going to take more than a .500 performance for the rest of this season to overlook that. If Dundon believes the Blazers have enough talent to compete, he may want someone with a track record in charge to test that theory. You start looking at a guy like Tom Thibodeau and ask what he could do with a mostly-young, defensively-minded roster. Former championship coach Michael Malone is sitting out there too. You get the idea. It’s possible that an owner who can’t spend extra money on the roster due to current salary cap conventions might decide to splurge on an unmissable head coach instead," Deckard wrote.

Thibs is not a good fit for the Blazers' depth. He wouldn't know what to do with so many young guns with growing pains. It's not about him in particular, though.

If you haven't been there and done that, you're not a better option than Splitter right now. Who knows what the team's ceiling could be if they stuck together.

Malone is the kind of risk you take. He's been there and done that, and even if he crashed and burned, no one would question Joe Cronin for hiring him. That's as good as it gets for a front office executive in sports.