A former Duke national champion is coming to coach HS basketball in the Charlotte area

Former Duke star Chris Duhon, 40, is the new boys basketball coach at Gaston Christian School.

Duhon, a McDonald’s All-American in high school, was a point guard for the Blue Devils from 2000-04. After college, Duhon was a second-round draft pick by the Chicago Bulls and played in the NBA from 2004-13 for the Bulls, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers.

When he came to Duke in 2000, Duhon was a backup to star Jay Williams. In 2001, he eventually started at point guard, with Williams moving to shooting guard, on a Blue Devils’ team that made a national championship run. Duke beat Arizona in the national final, when the Wildcats had a star-studded team including now ESPN announcer Richard Jefferson and podcaster Gilbert Arenas, two former NBA stars.

“We knew we had a good team,” Duhon said of the 2001 Blue Devils. “I remember on Senior Night, Carlos Boozer broke his foot and doubt started to kick in. I remember coach (Mike Krzyzewski) coming in the next day, upbeat. He said, ‘You guys listen to me. We’re going to win,’ and we did. We believed in him and changed the way we played with Carlos being out, and we made a run. Carlos came back around the Sweet 16 and fit right in. Once we got him back, we had a feeling like, ‘This was our year to take it all.’ ”

After his playing days, Duhon was an assistant coach at Marshall, Illinois State and Bryant University. After one year with Bryant in 2021-22, Duhon said he, his wife and five children moved to Charlotte last July from West Virginia, where his wife was teaching at Marshall.

Duhon’s wife took a position teaching math at Davidson, and Duhon said his mother lives in Charlotte.

“I always loved coaching,” Duhon said. “And I had that opportunity at Bryant, but it was difficult. I have five kids and always being away from them was just tough, and the college coaching world is also tough because there’s no guarantees that you’ll be there for a while. I didn’t want to uproot my family anymore and in Charlotte, my wife can focus on what she wants to do and my mom lives here.”

At Gaston Christian, Duhon takes over for Gabe Blair, who led Gaston Christian to a 23-10 mark last season with a young team. Gaston Christian reached the N.C. 3A semifinals before losing 30-27 to eventual state champion Greensboro Day.

Expected to return from that team, among others, are 6-foot-11 junior center Gabe Mabor and 5-11 point guard Cameron Newman, The Observer’s regional freshman of the year.

Duhon also has a 14-year-old son that will enroll at the school and join the team. Duhon won’t work at Gaston Christian. He said is self-employed as a financial services planner.

“The opportunity to get back into coaching was good,” Duhon said, “and having that head coaching role is really appealing. The next two to three weeks, I’m going to watch film on our guys and see their strengths and weaknesses and once I get them together, I’ll develop a style that best suits us. The great thing is, I’ve had a lot of great coaches that played a lot of different ways, and I’ll definitely be reaching out to them and taking what I think fits our team each year.”