North Carolina Basketball: Joel Berry, Theo Pinson, and Tony Bradley declare for NBA Draft
By Michael Foy
Joel Berry, Theo Pinson, and Tony Bradley declared for the NBA Draft without signing an agent.
Monday was a big one for the University of North Carolina’s basketball team. Juniors Joel Berry II and Theo Pinson, as well as Freshman Tony Bradley, all declared for the NBA Draft without signing an agent.
Joel Berry II averaged 14.7 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 3.6 assists, all while leading the Tar Heels to a national title and earning the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four award.
Theo Pinson averaged 6.1 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.7 assists in 21 games for the Heels this season. He missed 19 games due to injuries but led North Carolina in assists in the 21 games he played in.
Tony Bradley was quietly a very good player for North Carolina this season. On the year he averaged 7.1 points and 5.1 rebounds while shooting 57.3% from the floor. He was also second on the team in rebounds, which is impressive considering how good of a rebounding team Carolina was this past season.
The main takeaway from this is that all three players chose not to hire an agent. This means that they all have until May 24th to rescind their names from the draft and return to school to play another season.
If you are wondering why this has happened more and more lately, it is because the NBA recently allowed players to do this so that they can essentially go to the combine and receive feedback to help them know where they stand in the draft and what they need to go back to school and work on.
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If UNC were to lose all three of these players, the team would most likely go from a preseason top-10 ranking to a ranking in the 20s group. Only time will tell if any of them decide to come back to school, and Tar Heel fans everywhere will anxiously wait for that May 24th deadline.