CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The Tar Heels entered the 2025 offseason needing to rebuild a roster that lost five players to the transfer portal, three more through graduation and one to the NBA Draft. This offseason wasn’t Hubert Davis’ first foray into the transfer portal by any means, but he had extra support this time around.
With the help of general manager Jim Tanner, whom the team hired in February, North Carolina secured six players through the transfer portal — Jarin Stevenson, Henri Veesaar, Kyan Evans, Jaydon Young, Jonathan Powell and Ivan Matlekovic. The team also added overseas signee Luka Bogavac from Montenegro. In Tanner’s first offseason with the team, Davis said the Tar Heels accomplished their main goals in the portal cycle.
“Jim is a part of our team and a part of our program, and I’m really thankful that he’s here,” Davis said in his press conference on Tuesday. “We were friends prior to him becoming the general manager; we work extremely well together… He just has a burning desire for this program and this university to be successful, and so we work extremely well together, and just like all of us on the staff, he wants us to be successful.”
North Carolina wanted to add more size, and it did so by landing a pair of 7-footers in Veesar and Matlekovic, as well as the 6-foot-10 Stevenson. UNC lost most of its outside shooting with RJ Davis, Drake Powell, Ian Jackson and Jae’Lyn Withers — who all shot 35% or better from 3-point range — no longer on the roster. To fill in, UNC added Jonathan Powell (35% at West Virginia), Evans (44.6% last season at Colorado State) and Bogavac (39.9% at SC Derby last season).
Davis didn’t elaborate on the day-to-day specifics of his and Tanner’s roles in collaboration, but he said Tanner’s preexisting experience in other fields — Tanner founded and ran a sports agency — helps his team when dealing with player and roster management.
“For 27 years, he was an agent, and he’s a lawyer,” Davis said. “So he’s someone that obviously has connections with a number of different other agencies, his connections to the NBA. He’s someone that can write and read and understand contracts. And so those are things that (are) a skill set that is a huge benefit for us.”
Tanner’s agreement is five years, running through 2030 with the option for renegotiation in 2028. His annual base pay is $850,000, and he can secure a $100,000 bonus in any season that UNC makes the NCAA Tournament or signs a four-star or five-star athlete.
There’s an “additional staffing” section that states Tanner and the UNC head coach — in this case, Hubert Davis — can consult and negotiate with the school about the annual budget for compensating the staff, which includes “director staffing, assistants, and other support staff, in an amount commensurate with high-level programs.” No such staffing hires have been announced to date.
The six transfer additions on UNC’s roster are the most that the Tar Heels have netted in the Davis era. The old record was the five players North Carolina signed in the 2023 offseason.
Davis said that he, Tanner, and the rest of his staff must remain nimble in adjusting to the ever-changing world of college basketball. The use of a GM goes right along with that mission, with the staff delegating a chunk of the roster management efforts to Tanner and giving Davis more time to focus on the on-court game plan.
“We all really work well together in terms of evaluation,” Davis said of his staff on Tuesday. “It’s as simple as a want and a need, and those are the things that we evaluate, whether it’s in a transfer portal, from high school, internationally. And in terms of the makeup of the team, those are things that we’ve done in the past, and those are things that we’ve continued to do.”