If you’re Roy Williams, happiness is more than a warm puppy.

The Kansas University men’s basketball coach has been to the NCAA Final Four two years in a row. He is the winningest active coach in NCAA Division One.

Williams pockets more than $1 million a year. He’s happily married with two children who have graduated from North Carolina, his alma mater and the school currently clamoring for him to come home and lead the Tar Heels back to their rightful place in the men’s college basketball firmament.

This weekend Williams is in the Los Angeles area, staying at the Bel Air mansion of KU benefactor Dana Anderson, where he will accept the John Wooden Legends of Coaching Award today and play golf at two prestigious country clubs.

When I think of Williams, I think of something I read a few years ago about personal well-being. Extroverted men over the age of 55, the newspaper article stated, are the absolute kings of happiness hill. If that assessment is true, then Williams has beaten the spread. He won’t be 53 until August.

Williams is supposedly having phone conversations with Dick Baddour, the Tar Heels’ athletic director, about the UNC vacancy. Perhaps.

One theory about Carolina’s second flirtation with Williams hasn’t been talked about much yet it goes a long way toward explaining why the KU coach has been tiptoeing around the topic ever since Matt Doherty was fired … excuse me, resigned.

While some people may be peeved about the way Williams has handled the situation, it’s possible that when it is finally resolved the Kansas coach will have offended neither the people of Kansas nor the people of North Carolina.

Under this theory, Williams has planned to stay at Kansas all along and his meetings with Dean Smith were not to talk about him taking the job, but actually discussions to determine who would be the best man to fill the vacancy. In other words, Smith was soliciting Williams’ input, not his candidacy.

OK, you’re asking, then why didn’t Williams and Smith come right out and admit it?

This is a guess, but possibly because Williams didn’t want to make it look like Carolina would have to settle for seconds if he turned the job down. Obviously, KU people would have loved to hear Roy say “I’m staying” just as he did three years ago, but Carolina people would have been crushed and probably thought less of him for it.

How then does Roy play the politician and make both sides cast ballots for him?

One way. When Carolina announces it has hired a new coach — perhaps as soon as Monday — Williams will be asked to comment, of course, and he’ll say he’s happy for North Carolina, he’s happy for the new coach they’ve hired, he knows the Carolina program will return to greatness and especially that he’s happy at Kansas.

Most important, though, he’ll say he was never offered the North Carolina job.

Why say he was never offered the job? Because that’s the only way to prevent another circus like we witnessed at Memorial Stadium three years ago when he announced he was staying. Williams surely doesn’t want that again.

To continue the theory, Williams would return from Los Angeles early next week, or at about the same time the Tar Heels hire a new coach, issue his statement about the fine selection Carolina officials made, underline the fact he wasn’t offered the job and carry on as if nothing really happened.

His next order of business would be the basketball awards ceremony Thursday night at the Lied Center and, thanks to the clever way Williams and Smith had orchestrated the process, KU’s seniors — not Williams — would be the focus of Thursday’s activity, as they should be.

Under this hypothetical scenario, those who believe Smith holds the hammer over North Carolina basketball will have to concede Williams has reached the point where Smith is no longer mentoring him in basketball coaching but in power brokering.

That’s the theory. It makes sense, but you have to remember this is college athletics and Machiavelli never played a down or made a basket.