He played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats, earning consensus second-team All-American honors.

Givens earned Kentucky Mr. Basketball and Parade All-American honors after his senior year at Lexington's Bryan Station High School in 1974.

In his freshman year at the University of Kentucky, the Wildcats finished as national runners-up, falling 92–85 to UCLA in the 1975 Final Four championship game.

Givens played for the Akita Isuzu Motors basketball team of Japan, where he still returns regularly with his family to visit the friends he made there, in 1982–83.

[1][2] After his playing career, Givens was an NBA television color analyst for various networks and teams, most notably with the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) and the Orlando Magic for both the Sun Sports and FS Florida cable stations from the team's inception in 1989 to 2004 before being replaced by Matt Guokas.