UNC Alumni in the NBA: Pair of former Tar Heels thriving in G-League

Pair of former UNC stars, national champions are thriving in NBA G-League

Isaiah Hicks and Theo Pinson, members of the 2017 North Carolina Tar Heels national championship team, are two of 60 players signed to a two-way contract allowing them to play for both an NBA franchise, and its G-League affiliate.

The contract, which allows players to dress with their NBA team for up to 45 days per season while spending the majority of time in a minor league setting, has been good for young talents like Hicks and Pinson. They’re able to get acclimated to the highest level of basketball, while still getting the minutes and experience that they need on a nightly basis with their G-League team.

Hicks, in particular, made 18 appearances with the Knicks during his rookie season, and logged better than 13 minutes a night. He spent the majority of the final two months of the season with the Knicks, averaging 4.4 points and 2.3 rebounds per game. He scored in double-figures on two occasions, including a 15-point outing against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the final game of the season.

This season, Hicks is yet to make an appearance for the struggling Knicks, who currently sit in last-place of the Atlantic standings with a record of 8-20. He is, however, having a fantastic season with the G-League’s Westchester Knicks. His most recent game was a 15-point, 10-rebound performance against the Oklahoma City Blue.

For the season, Hicks is averaging 18.6 points, nine rebounds and 2.1 assists in nearly 33 minutes a game. All three are an uptick from his 2017-18 campaign, and he’s shooting better than 52 percent from the floor and nearly 75 percent from the free throw line. With Hicks averaging numbers like these in the G-League, and the Knicks organization resembling a dumpster fire, the second-year big man will likely get a fair amount of opportunity in the NBA this season.

Theo Pinson is also putting together a terrific season in his first year of professional basketball. The former UNC jack-of-all-trades is just a season removed from college ball, but has already made impressive strides, particularly in his ability to shoot from long-distance.

While in Chapel Hill, Pinson was never considered a dangerous shooter beyond mid-range, and even that was questionable at times. For his career, he shot just 25.7 percent from three-point range, and never better than 29 percent in any one season.

He’s shown a remarkable turnaround in the first 14 games of his G-League career, knocking down 36.6 percent of his attempts from long-range, and becoming one of the Long Island Nets’ most reliable scorers. He’s also been one of their best all-around players, doing a little bit of everything on the court and playing a lot of minutes.

In a recent game against the Lakeland Magic, Pinson scored 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting and 5-of-9 from three-point range. He also hauled in four assists and three rebounds in 32 minutes of play for the Nets, who beat the Magic by a final score of 125-111.

For the season, he’s averaging 18.5 points, 6.1 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game. He’s shooting 44 percent from the floor and 86.7 percent from the free throw line in better than 34 minutes per game. And although his contributions at the NBA level have been minimal to this point, he has made three appearance with the Brooklyn Nets during the first two months of the season.

With Pinson playing well and the Nets just two games better than the Knicks in the Atlantic standings, a promising young player like Pinson could stand to see quite a bit of time at the NBA level as the season goes on.

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