Tarheels in the NBA

    There are currently 16 former Tarheels in the NBA with the recent 4 first round draft picks K.Marshall, H.Barnes, T.Zeller, and J.Henson.  J.Stackhouse, V.Carter, A.Jamison, B.Haywood, R.Felton, M.Williams, T.Hansbrough, D.Green, B.Wright, T.Lawson, W.Ellington, & E.Davis are the others.  Out of all the Tarheels in the NBA right now, I think Ty Lawson is the best player.  Vince Carter probably has had the best overall career averaging 21.4 ppg, winning 1999 Rookie of the year, 2000 NBA slam dunk champion, and an 8-time NBA All-Star. but he is at the end of his career and not playing his best basketball.  Tyler Hansbrough probably had the best College career, but he has be relegated to playing backup PF for the Indiana Pacers.  Marvin Williams was the drafted the highest out of them all being picked 2nd overall in the '06 draft by the Atlanta Hawks, but he has been viewed largely as an underachiever and was recently traded to the Utah Jazz.  Ty Lawson on the other hand is coming off his 3rd & best season since being drafted 18th overall (which I said was way to low at the time) in the '09 draft. He averaged 16 points and 6 assist this pass season and stepped his game up even more when the playoffs started.  This is where I think Lawson officially arrived.  He dominated in 4 of the 7 games against the Lakers scoring 25, 25, 32, & 24 points respectively and was the reason the Nuggets took the Lakers to 7 games and almost won the series.  It will be interesting to see if Lawson can start next season the way he ended this season and continue to dominate and become one of the best young PG's in a league that is currently being dominated by outstanding PG's.  It will also be interesting to see how long Lawson can hold the torch as the best UNC in the NBA with Harrison Barnes showing lots of potential this Summer with the Golden St. Warriors.  This kid was under extremely unrealistic expectations while at Chapel Hill after being compared to greats there was no way he could live up to.  So it will be interesting to see how well he plays with all of this pressure gone. I expect him to really take off and surprise people and he is my pick for ROY this coming season, even thou I was one of the people who was really critical and disappointed in his play at times while at Carolina.  I just think he has a game more suited for the NBA and should be able to play much better than he did at UNC.  With all this being said Lawson wasn't even an all-star this year (all though he could soon become one). For a school that produced the GOAT (Michael Jordan), I keep wondering where are the dominate UNC players at?  Maybe H.Barnes and/or Ty Lawson can become one.