The North Carolina basketball program has another departure, with forward Drake Powell making the decision to declare for the 2025 NBA Draft after one season.<\/p>\n
The former 5-star recruit, who starred at Pittsboro\u2019s Northwood High, helped the Tar Heels make a late run in the 2024-25 season to reach the NCAA tournament. Powell started 24 games as a freshman for the Heels, averaging 7.4 points and 3.4 rebounds.<\/p>\n
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News of Powell leaving for the NBA was reported Wednesday on his Instagram account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision was nowhere near easy,\u201d Powell wrote on the IG account.<\/p>\n
Several mock NBA drafts have Powell, a versatile 6-foot-6 wing, potentially being a late first-round pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have learned so much on and off the court,\u201d Powell wrote on IG. \u201cI was born and bred a Tar Heel, and to have the opportunity to put on that uniform, run through that tunnel and compete for the University that I love is a feeling that is unmatched and I will never take for granted. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, competing at the highest level has always been the ultimate goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2025 NBA Draft is Wednesday, June 25, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The North Carolina basketball program has another departure, with forward Drake Powell making the decision to declare for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,670,997,6,12,1072,1073],"class_list":{"0":"post-1220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-drake-powell","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nba-draft","13":"tag-tar-heels","14":"tag-the-north-carolina-basketball-program"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114404701238919944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}