Every offseason, we run historical ranking series focusing on North Carolina basketball and football.
The purpose each spring isn’t to make declarative statements, but to have fun offering a subjective look at the best teams and players ever at Carolina. This effort is to generate discourse, debate, and take UNC fans down memory lane.
This season, we are doing something a little different, combining football and basketball, as we offer our take on the Top 40 UNC football and basketball players of all time. The criteria is quite simple: The process includes playing careers with the Tar Heels and professionally, other relevant impacts they’ve had on their sports, coaching, and championships. We also gave a lean toward all UNC accomplishments.
So, this isn’t a UNC-only list, a pro-only list, or a straight up purely best ever list. Some Tar Heels on this list didn’t have great pro careers but were so good and historic at UNC, they simply had to make the cut. Some on this list weren’t stars at UNC, but had outstanding and/or highly distinguished pro careers, that it warranted their place among these 40 athletes.
We hope you enjoy the list and feel free to disagree, as we know many will.
We continue our countdown with:
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No. 7: Vince Carter (1995-98)
It took Carter a while in college for his game to come together, which is why he didn’t rank anywhere near this high a year ago in our college-career-only rankings. But he was still a very good player at UNC.
He was a consensus second-team All-America and first-team All-ACC in 1998, he was a key member of UNC teams that won consecutive ACC Tournament championships in 1997 and 1998 and advanced to back-to-back Final Fours in those same years.
Carter made the ACC All-Tournament team in 1998. The 6-foot-5 Carter averaged 15.6 points and 5.1 rebounds that season, which was his junior year, and he was on the ACC’s all-defensive team. Perhaps the most theatrical dunkers in UNC history, Carter’s best basketball came at the next level.
The No. 5 overall pick in the 1998 NBA draft, Carter played 22 seasons and is the only player in league history to play in four different decades. He was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 1999, he’s played in 8 NBA All-Star games, won the NBA slam dunk championship in 2000, and in 2016 was named the NBA’s Teammate of the Year.
Carter averaged at least 20 points per game in 10 different seasons, and his career average in 1,545 games was 16.7. He scored 25,728 points. His other career averages: 4.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.0 steals, and .6 blocks.
He’s averaged 18.1 points while shooting just 41.6 percent along with 5.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 88 career playoff games.
Carter was named NBA Player of the Week 11 times, was Rookie of the Month twice, Player of the Month three times, was Rookie of the Year, 2015-15 Teammate of the Year, and he played in eight All-Star games.
One can debate if Carter is one of the top 25 UNC basketball players of all-time based solely on Tar heel careers, but his professional success has earned him a spot high on this list, and he is likely headed for enshrinement into the naismith Hall of Fame. Carter also won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics.
