Reflecting on Hubert Davis’ Career as an NBA Player

Hubert Davis played for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from starting his career in 1988 underneath one of the best to coach college basketball, Dean Smith. As a player, Davis averaged 11.8 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 1.3 assists through his four years. However, the senior from Winston-Salem scored 21.4 points, along with logging in 2.3 rebounds, and 1.6 assists, per Sports Reference.

Then, Davis went on to enter the 1992 NBA Draft where the New York Knicks selected him with the No. 20 pick and ended up playing 12 seasons for various teams including the Toronto Raptors, Dallas Mavericks, Washington Wizards, and the Detroit Pistons. Despite having a small points per game stat, Davis held a career three-point shooting percentage of 44.1%. That detail tells a little bit about why he is the kind of coach he is today leading the Tar Heels.

Davis, a sharpshooter in his own right, scored 5,583 points, secured 1,045 rebounds, and dished out 1,172 assists across the 685 NBA games he played. The most points he scored was during the 1997-1998 season for the Mavericks.

In 2025, many years past his playing days, Davis is now the head coach of North Carolina, where he takes all of his lessons learned as a player and implements it into his coaching style.

GoHeels wrote about the 55-year-old head coach:

"Davis led the Tar Heels to the 2022 NCAA East Regional championship, a win at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game, another win over the Blue Devils in a historic Final Four matchup and a berth in the national championship game in his first season as a head coach.

The 1992 graduate of the University of North Carolina received two National Coach-of-the-Year awards as UNC won 17 of its last 21 games and came within a few possessions of securing the program’s seventh NCAA Tournament title.

He was named the 20th head coach of the UNC men’s basketball program on April 5, 2021, becoming the fourth former Tar Heel player to become UNC’s head coach and the first Black head coach in Carolina men’s basketball history.

Davis played for Dean Smith at Carolina from 1988-92 and was an assistant coach on Roy Williams’ staff from 2012-21. He played a key role coaching, recruiting and scouting and was the head coach of the UNC junior varsity program for six seasons from 2013-19."

UNC is going to begin it's fifth season with Davis as the head coach, as he had been leading many talented players such as RJ Davis (now with the Los Angeles Lakers) and Drake Powell (now with the Brooklyn Nets). Plus five-star Caleb Wilson who's preparing for his first taste of college basketball.

Basketball has been a huge component of Davis' life, to say the least, but he's now able to effectively impact the lives of all the players he meets after spending nine seasons as an assistant to three-time NCAA champion Roy Williams.

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