If you've blinked of late, you have probably missed a North Carolina transfer commit. Michael Malone has been on fire, adding Terrence Brown and Matt Able. Then out of nowhere, center Maxim Logue joined the party. While that's great, what does this mean for Henri Veesaar?
Hopefully nothing, as the hope is that Logue will be a depth piece for the Tar Heels. At the same time, there's been plenty of buzz recently that Veesaar could decide to enter the NBA Draft and see whether or not he'll get a first-round grade. Reporter Andrew Jones confirmed that while on a podcast with John Henson, leaving Veesaar's future a bit unclear for next season.
“Our understanding right now, and we’ll have to find out some more information later today, was that he was going to enter the draft, but also hold the possibility of returning,” Jones told Henson. “He has until May 27 to withdraw from the draft, so that gives him five weeks. That’s plenty of time to find out what he’s all about and if he’s going to be a first-round pick or not. In the meantime Carolina’s got to take care of themselves. They ought to go after someone and pay someone to be a starter at the five and if Henri does come back, well there’s nothing wrong with that - you’ve got an abundance of dudes there, but an abundance of dudes is a good thing and you can find ways to make it work.”
UNC big man Henri Veesaar is expected to test the NBA Draft waters
On one hand, this feels promising, as even if Veesaar does decide to declare for the draft, the door won't be shut on him to return to Chapel Hill. On the other side of things, though, is Malone going to be able to wait and see what Veesaar does?
For now, the lineup is starting to take shape, as Brown, Able, Neoklis Avdalas and Jarin Stevenson feel like pretty strong locks to be starters. That just leaves a bit of a question mark at the five spot. Jones also noted on the podcast that Carolina is giving overseas players serious looks to potentially fill a Veesaar void.
Should Malone work his magic and bring in a stud, that'd be great, but for a lot of people, us included, the preference would be for Veesaar, an All-ACC player last season, to return. He was fantastic in his debut season with the Tar Heels and he'd be a total force next campaign too.
Reading the tea leaves, it feels like the Carolina faithful need to get ready for Veesaar-NBA Draft news to drop soon. Once that happens, him pulling himself out can't be ruled out, as he'll indeed have until late May to make his final call. However, Malone may not be willing to wait that long, which only complicates things even further for UNC and the talented big man.
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