UNC Basketball: Roy Williams still living rent-free in Larry Drew II’s head

One of the most seldom thought of former UNC basketball players of the past 20 years, Larry Drew II is still blaming other people for his shortcomings.

We’re fairly certain that the newly-retired Roy Williams is planning to keep his home in Chapel Hill, but if he needs anywhere else to stay, there’s plenty of room in former Tar Heel Larry Drew II’s head. And for Williams, it’s rent-free.

The one-time starter turned back-up point guard is apparently still upset about his time spent at the University of North Carolina. Despite the fact that it was more than a decade ago, Drew hasn’t been able to let bygones be bygones, and still hasn’t accepted that the situation was primarily his fault. And even if it wasn’t his fault, it was nothing less than a substantial difference in talent between he and Kendall Marshall.

See, Marshall, who began his time at North Carolina as a back-up to Drew but eventually overtook the smaller, less talented guard, turned out to be arguably the most dynamic passer in team history. He was also a Bob Cousy Award winner, and the catalyst that sparked one of the best UNC offenses I’ve ever seen.

Drew, on the other hand, didn’t like being replaced in the Tar Heels’ starting lineup, or even having to compete for playing time, as it turns out. That’s why he fled Chapel Hill like a thief in the night on February 3, 2011 without so much as saying a word to anyone. In fact, it was his father, Larry Drew Sr., that informed Roy Williams the following day of the younger Drew’s departure.

Drew sat out the remainder of that season and the next before using his final year of eligibility with the UCLA Bruins. After going undrafted in 2013, he bounced around the NBA D-League over the next five years, along with short stints with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Orleans Pelicans. He scored 63 points across 22 NBA appearances before hanging it up in 2018.

And although it’s been more than 10 years since his time spent with the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, Drew apparently still has a bone to pick his former head coach. Within hours of the news that Williams was stepping down as head coach of the men’s basketball team last Friday, Drew tweeted out an incendiary comment about the three-time national title-winning coach via his personal Twitter account.

“Roy Williams was the greatest recruiter to front as a head coach of all time,” Drew tweeted. But he didn’t stop there, doubling down on his account of the situation involving one of the game’s most beloved coaches.

In a related conversation that ensued on Twitter, Drew basically blamed his lack of success in the NBA on Williams, asserting that his former head coach trashed him to every team in the league and damaged his career in the process. His position on that makes it seem as if he had some LeBron James-like potential that went untapped because Williams simply wouldn’t allow it.

But then that kind of narrow-minded, lack of awareness, no accountability approach sounds rather familiar coming from Drew. His decisions in 2011 were, by some accounts, written off as “things that kids do”, but it’s fairly clear that at 31 years of age, this is just who Larry Drew II is.

That I didn’t know or hear about Drew’s tweet and subsequent senselessness until four days after the fact is just a testament to how few people follow or remember him.

There’s also an ironic twist to what Drew’s tweet implies versus the reality that the rest of us all live in, and it’s this: Drew calling Williams the “greatest recruiter to front as a coach” simply cannot apply to Drew, who was quite possibly the worst combination of player and teammate that Williams recruited in his 18 years with the Tar Heels.

Regardless, it’s rather nice of Drew, who apparently now spends his time on Twitter moonlighting as a former basketball player while insulting those who afforded him the best opportunity of his life, to give Williams a place to stay inside his head for all eternity, completely free of charge.

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