Armando Bacot won’t play in the NBA, probably won’t even get much run in the Summer League. But if what he said on a UNC hoops alum’s podcast this week is true, he made $2 million in NIL money for his two senior seasons at North Carolina.
“I made $2+ million. I’m saying that humbly, though,” Bacot said on a podcast hosted by former Tar Heel Theo Pinson, who got limited minutes in parts of five NBA seasons, before spending the 2023-2024 season in the G League.
Two million dollars for a guy who really had no other option but to return to Carolina for his traditional and then COVID redshirt senior seasons, because the NBA doesn’t have much use for a back-to-the-basket 6’9” guy who can’t defend the pick-and-roll and isn’t a rim protector.
“That speaks of the brand at North Carolina. If I didn’t go to North Carolina, I wouldn’t have been doing those deals at Turbo Tax and others,” Bacot told Pinson on the podcast.
This, folks, is where the NIL money should go – not to a one- or two-and-done, but to a veteran guy like a Bacot or a Hunter Dickinson, really good college players who, for whatever reason, don’t have a position in the NBA.
You don’t necessarily need to pay them a million dollars a year, if that’s what Bacot actually got from his NIL deals at UNC, because they’re in line to get at best half that if they can play themselves into a two-way NBA/G League deal or get into a really good situation overseas.
I’ll wonder out loud here if UVA hoops could have kept Reece Beekman for his COVID redshirt year if it could have come up with a competitive NIL deal.
Something to think about for the future there …
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Chris Graham
