{"id":548340,"date":"2026-03-27T11:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T11:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/548340\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T11:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T11:26:10","slug":"kenny-the-jet-smith-reacts-to-hubert-davis-firing-his-name-being-floated-for-unc-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/548340\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith reacts to Hubert Davis firing, his name being floated for UNC job"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since Hubert Davis\u2019<\/a> firing as North Carolina<\/a> head coach, Tar Heel great Kenny \u201cThe Jet\u201d Smith shared his reaction. The TNT analyst was also asked about his name being floated<\/a> for the job, most notably by ESPN\u2019s Stephen A. Smith.<\/p>\n

Smith thanked Davis for his time at North Carolina, both as a player and as a member of the coaching staff. The two did not overlap in Chapel Hill \u2013 Davis\u2019 freshman year was in 1988-89 and Smith\u2019s senior season was 1986-87 \u2013 but Smith stayed close to the program. His son, Malloy<\/a>, also committed to UNC this past year while Davis was still at the helm.<\/p>\n

When asked by host Nate Burleson about both the North Carolina vacancy and his name being connected to it, Smith said it was \u201cdisrespectful.\u201d But he also listed off the members of Davis\u2019 staff, who all played at UNC, and stressed the importance of remembering the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we can talk about North Carolina,\u201d Smith said at halftime of Texas<\/a> vs. Purdue<\/a>. \u201cBut that vacancy \u2013 I thought that was honestly disrespectful. But first of all, Coach Hubert Davis, thank you. Your service and what you did for North Carolina basketball as a player and as a coach, you moved it forward. I think people forget that because of one game here and there. But I also think this is a precarious position for North Carolina and for us as Tar Heels. Because what makes us special, when you fire one person, that\u2019s Hubert Davis. But when you have Coach [Brad] Frederick<\/a>, you have Sean May<\/a>, you have Jeff Lebo<\/a>, you have Marcus Paige<\/a>, you have Pat Sullivan<\/a>. What that is, is you have a lineage to every era of basketball that\u2019s Carolina that was on that staff, including Hubert Davis. Every era was connected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what makes us special. Forget all that \u2018blue blood.\u2019 What makes Carolina family is the connection of all of those eras were in one building at one time. That\u2019s makes people pay attention and have some animosity or some love for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenny Smith: Next coach should \u2018retire a Tar Heel\u2019<\/p>\n

Through the early part of the coaching search, the sense is North Carolina will go outside the family. If that\u2019s the case, it would mark the first time the Tar Heels\u2019 head coach would not have a connection to the late great Dean Smith.<\/p>\n

That said, Kenny Smith has one thing he wants to see in the next coach. He wants that person to retire at North Carolina and said Davis would have, if he had the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other part of that is, the secretaries. They\u2019ve been there for 10 years,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe equipment managers, the strength and conditioning person\u00a0\u2013 decades. So when a new person come in, if we hire supposedly [from] outside the family and this new person comes in, they might [say], \u2018Well, this guy was my guy. I want to bring him in, as well.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say this. Dean Smith retired as a Tar Heel. Roy Williams retired as a Tar Heel. Hubert Davis was going to retire a Tar Heel. Whoever we come in, they have to want to retire a Tar Heel. I don\u2019t care what that means. You don\u2019t want to look for, \u2018Oh, [what] J.J. Redick has done in LA. I want to be a Laker.\u2019 You retire a Tar Heel, the next person.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since Hubert Davis\u2019 firing as North Carolina head coach, Tar Heel great Kenny \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[149956,99],"class_list":["post-548340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-hubert-davis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}