Veteran NBA agent Jim Tanner will be North Carolina basketball’s general manager, UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham announced Tuesday. Tanner’s hiring comes after fourth-year coach Hubert Davis revealed this month that he intended to hire a GM amid a rocky season for the Tar Heels in an evolving college basketball landscape.
The announcement of Tanner’s hiring came just before WRAL reported that Davis signed a contract extension in December that will run through 2030.
Tanner is the founder and president of Tandem Sports + Entertainment and represents NBA stars Desmond Bane and Jarrett Allen. The 1990 UNC graduate has represented 40 first-round NBA Draft picks over a career spanning nearly three decades.
“I am excited and happy to have Jim join our staff and the UNC family,” Davis said. “Jim’s experience and knowledge is needed in helping us navigate contracts, the transfer portal and the advancement of this program. His resumé speaks for itself and his commitment to this university and community make him a great addition to the Carolina men’s basketball program.”
General managers in college athletics rarely wield the authority and autonomy of their professional sports counterparts. However, hiring GMs to assist in roster management has become commonplace in college basketball during the NIL era, and a hire of Tanner’s repute suggests the Tar Heels are serious about arming their GM with legitimate power.
Among his responsibilities will be assisting in roster construction, contract negotiation and the assembly of staff in the scouting/analytics space.
Tanner’s hiring is a notable development for a blue blood program, but it turns out it’s only the start of a significant internal overhaul, as Matt Norlander reported Tuesday:
North Carolina is “aggressively pivoting to hiring a full-on ‘front office,'” per Norlander’s sources. That includes 61-year-old North Carolina…
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