Powerful NBA Agent Jim Tanner Likely Taking Pay Cut to Become UNC GM

Jim Tanner is coming home to his alma mater. His services might come at a discount. 

North Carolina announced Tuesday that it had hired Tanner—one of the NBA’s most powerful agents—as the general manager of its men’s basketball team.

“The landscape of college basketball has changed dramatically in a short period of time with NIL, collectives and the transfer portal,” Tanner said in a release. “It’s a highly-competitive and constantly-evolving environment.”

While his contract information was not immediately available, according to a UNC spokesperson, he is very likely taking a pay cut in his new job. Tanner has eight active NBA players slated to make roughly $66 million combined this season. Under the NBPA’s 4% cap on agent commissions, that would mean roughly $2.6 million in pay for Tanner, far more than any previous reported college sports GM job. USC made headlines in January when it poached Notre Dame’s GM by tripling his salary to $1 million. But North Carolina has reset the GM market before. When it reached a deal with Michael Lombardi to be the football team’s GM for $1.5 million, ESPN reported that was “almost double the highest one currently known in college football.”

Some GMs are in it for the love of the game. Andrew Luck cleared over $100 million in his brief NFL career, more than he’ll ever make as Stanford’s football GM; NBA newsbreaker Adrian Wojnarowski famously took a 99% pay cut to be GM at St. Bonaventure, leaving $7.5 million of his ESPN salary to make $75,000.

Tanner has represented several prominent clients from UNC, including Raymond Felton, Vince Carter and Tyler Hansbrough. Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen, Grizzlies wing Desmond Bane and Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan are some of Tanner’s now-former personal clients. 

In Tanner’s lengthy career, he’s represented Hall of Famers including Ray Allen, Tim Duncan, and Grant Hill, and has done over $1 billion in NBA contracts. He founded Tandem Sports and Entertainment, where he has been the president of the agency since 2013.

Tandem’s Spain-based parent company was sold to Gersh Sports in December of last year. In a statement, Gersh said Tanner was leaving the company.

Tanner is believed to be the first high-profile agent to make the switch. Syracuse hired former NBA scout Alex Kline for the job in June 2024 while St. Bonaventure hired Wojnarowski in the same role three months later. Kline and Wojnarowski are both alums at their respective employers; Tanner graduated from UNC in 1990. Duke was the first major men’s basketball program to hire a general manager when the Blue Devils nabbed longtime Nike executive Rachel Baker for the role. 

He joins the Tar Heels at a time where head coach Hubert Davis is under fire for his second disappointing season in four years since replacing legendary coach Roy Williams. The Tar Heels are 18–11 this season and are currently on the NCAA tournament bubble.

Davis signed a new contract extension in December that extends his deal to 2030.