Chansky’s Notebook: Meeks Learns The Easy Way

Kennedy Meeks coming back makes both him and is team dangerous.

When Kennedy Meeks announced his was pulling out of the NBA draft, it was the second biggest story on ESPN.com. Not because it was such earth-shattering news, but it is the first nugget of truth to the new system the NBA and colleges are using to let players test the waters.

Meeks and Justin Jackson were the two UNC underclassmen who put their names into the NBA draft and did not hire agents, making it possible for them to reverse the process and return to play for Carolina next season. It was an easy choice for Meeks, who is in good academic standing and was NOT invited to participate in the NBA combine of coaches and scouts. Jackson was invited, and he remains in the draft for now.

Meeks not being among the 70 invitees was proof enough that he is not yet good enough to be a first-round NBA draft pick. And it is not like he was ready to leave college, a projected draft pick or not. Meeks now knows that one off-season and his senior year stand between his next chance, and he had better make the best of it. He will work hard to maintain his playing weight and gain the explosiveness around the basket that left him a below the rim player last season.

Should he do that, Meeks and Isaiah Hicks will form one of the best low post tandems in both the ACC and college basketball. And despite the loss of Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige, the Tar Heels will still be a very dangerous team in 2017. If Jackson learns that he, too, needs another year of schooling to be a first-round pick, he will also return to UNC with the incentive to make both himself and his team that much better.

It is still not a perfect system, but testing the NBA waters is now more of a science than someone’s family and friends saying, “Hey, you are ready; you will go in the first round.” Not being invited to the combine told Meeks in a far more objective manner that he isn’t ready. He still could have remained in the draft and, if not picked in the second round, tried out as a free agent. But he did not squander his best option.

So Kennedy Meeks is back in Tar Heel blue. Both the player and the program should be better off for it.