Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith reacts to Hubert Davis firing, his name being floated for UNC job

For the first time since Hubert Davis’ firing as North Carolina head coach, Tar Heel great Kenny “The Jet” Smith shared his reaction. The TNT analyst was also asked about his name being floated for the job, most notably by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.

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 – Davis’ freshman year was in 1988-89 and Smith’s senior season was 1986-87 – but Smith stayed close to the program. His son, Malloy, also committed to UNC this past year while Davis was still at the helm.

When asked by host Nate Burleson about both the North Carolina vacancy and his name being connected to it, Smith said it was “disrespectful.” But he also listed off the members of Davis’ staff, who all played at UNC, and stressed the importance of remembering the past.

“Yeah, we can talk about North Carolina,” Smith said at halftime of Texas vs. Purdue. “But that vacancy – 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’s Hubert Davis. But when you have Coach [Brad] Frederick, you have Sean May, you have Jeff Lebo, you have Marcus Paige, you have Pat Sullivan. What that is, is you have a lineage to every era of basketball that’s Carolina that was on that staff, including Hubert Davis. Every era was connected.

“That’s what makes us special. Forget all that ‘blue blood.’ What makes Carolina family is the connection of all of those eras were in one building at one time. That’s makes people pay attention and have some animosity or some love for us.”

Kenny Smith: Next coach should ‘retire a Tar Heel’

Through the early part of the coaching search, the sense is North Carolina will go outside the family. If that’s the case, it would mark the first time the Tar Heels’ head coach would not have a connection to the late great Dean Smith.

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.

“The other part of that is, the secretaries. They’ve been there for 10 years,” Smith said. “The equipment managers, the strength and conditioning person – 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], ‘Well, this guy was my guy. I want to bring him in, as well.’

“I 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’t care what that means. You don’t want to look for, ‘Oh, [what] J.J. Redick has done in LA. I want to be a Laker.’ You retire a Tar Heel, the next person.”