How will this former UNC basketball standout’s role change in his rookie NBA season?
The emergence of Drake Powell was a major reason why UNC made this year’s NCAA Tournament, a selection highly-debated amongst college basketball analysts.
Powell started his freshman year at North Carolina as a key reserve, with head coach Hubert Davis electing to start a 3-guard lineup. As Hubert quickly learned this small-ball lineup hurt the Tar Heels against taller opponents, Powell entered the starting lineup – and made his greatest impact with lockdown defense.
Selected 22nd overall in the 2025 NBA Draft and now a member of the Brooklyn Nets, Powell started 27 of the 40 Tar Heel games he appeared in. Powell’s college averages of 7.4 points and 3.3 rebounds per game are small in comparison to his high school numbers – 17.7 points, 7.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.2 steals and 1.2 blocks per game senior year – but he found ways to contribute at UNC without filling up the stat sheet.
Powell recently had an interesting comment about his time at UNC ahead of being drafted in the first round.
“I’d say it really just kind of switched my mentality a little bit,” Powell said via Lucas Kaplan of NetsDaily. “You know, like you said, my usage rate, it dropped a lot once I got to North Carolina, but I was still playing, like, heavy minutes and being able to help the team be successful. “I really could have, you know, just sulked and just complained to the coaches. But like, what does that get done? That was really the way I thought.
And so I just accepted the role that I was given with open arms and and, yeah, I just wanted to be able to play it to the best of my ability to help the team be successful.”
Powell joins an extremely young Brooklyn roster that includes fellow 2025 Draft selection Egor Demin, budding star Cam Thomas, recent trade acquisition Michael Porter Jr. and Nic Claxton. With plenty of minutes up for grabs, Powell has endless opportunities to make his first NBA season a success.
