Hopefully, it won’t turn out to be a lose-lose for Bradley and UNC.

In many ways, Tony Bradley’s decision to remain in the NBA draft is a head-scratcher. Even if one team he worked out for promised to draft him in the first round, there is no guarantee on draft night with the always-fluid NBA. Players’ stock is known to fluctuate dramatically and some foreigners appear out of nowhere.

If Bradley goes late in the first round for guaranteed money, it is still not enough to last a lifetime, and he has to prove his worth for a long-term contract. Supposedly, Bradley’s father favored him staying in the draft and learning to play and getting paid for it. Fallacies abound with that plan.

If Bradley isn’t drafted in the first round, he must make the roster of the team that picks him in the second. And if he makes a roster, there is precious little practice time in the NBA with a chaotic preseason and 82-game schedule. So when does a reserve learn and improve?

Colleges have three times as many practices as games. Had he returned to Carolina as a sophomore, Bradley would have been a starter with a chance to become a star and leapfrog into the lottery next year. The two one-and-dones in the Roy Williams era – Marvin Williams and Brandan Wright – had ol’ Roy’s blessing as sure lottery picks. Hopefully not, but Bradley could wind up in the D League or Europe and, worst case, be out of basketball in five years.

That would be a tragic waste of talent for Bradley, who would have made the Tar Heels a top 10 team again. Now they will rely on three unproven, moderately recruited freshmen bigs. As for physicality, 6-10, 230-pound Ohioan Sterling Manley has been great in high school when he played, overcoming two broken shin bones. He finished his career healthy and was last rated as a three-star recruit.

The other two frosh bigs are 4-stars, Raleigh’s 6-9 Brandon Huffman and 6-9 Garrison Brooks from Alabama. Brooks is the slighter of the two and could play some stretch four as well as rotating with Luke Maye at one post. In 1977, Dean Smith rotated three freshmen big men when Tom LaGarde went down. Those otherwise all-star Tar Heels made the Final Four — which is now suddenly a long shot for the 2018ers.

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