CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Seven months ago, after North Carolina had applied the high-flying finishing touches to a blowout victory against American, Seth Trimble remained as the final player fielding questions in the lounge area where the Tar Heels gather for postgame interviews.
It was UNC's third college basketball game of last season, a romp at the Smith Center packed with show-stopping sequences galore. The Tar Heels piled up 107 points that night behind five double-digit scorers, including Trimble. But afterward, as the reporters around him thinned out and left a few familiar faces behind, Trimble kept returning to two moments in particular that had nothing to do with the firepower Carolina displayed on offense.
During the second half, UNC teammate **[Drake Powell](https://247sports.com/Player/Drake-Powell-46116213)** had swooped in on defense from the help side and swatted a pair of blocked shots with both hands. He practically hurdled 6-foot-2 American guard Colin Smalls in midair while floating higher and higher for the first two-handed rejection, before denying 6-7 forward Julian Iturbe in nearly exactly the same soaring fashion. All of which had Trimble sitting there afterward laughing and smiling and shaking his head in disbelief, comparing the defensive highlights the freshman Powell had authored to perhaps some of NBA star Ja Morant's greatest hits.
"That's a soul-snatcher," Trimble said that night, grouping the two blocked shots together. "It's crazy. I really don't even know what to say when it comes to Drake. You're just in awe. You don't ever see something like that.
"I told him if he ever did that to me, it would be a fight. That's my way of complimenting him, you know? Yeah, if he ever did that to me, it'd be a fight."
Powell delivered sparkling glimpses such as those — sinking catch-and-shoot 3-pointers in the Maui Invitational, slapping the clamps on dynamic scorer Andrej Stojakovic in a beatdown of California, hounding inbounds passers in an overtime escape of Boston College — along the course of his one-and-done stop with the Tar Heels. And on Wednesday night, the Atlanta Hawks made him a first-round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft with the No. 22 overall selection.
Last summer, Powell joined Carolina out of nearby Northwood High School in Pittsboro, N.C., as a coveted five-star prospect and McDonald's All-American, among a numerous collection of blue-chip recruiting accolades that also included repeat first-team all-state honors. Now, a year later, he has become UNC's 55th first-round choice in NBA Draft history, while snapping a mini drought across the last three draft classes.
The Tar Heels hadn't produced a first-round pick since 2021, until Powell was taken on Wednesday night. Since the 2019 NBA Draft, when Carolina's Coby White, Cameron Johnson and Nassir Little were among the first 25 choices off the board, the Tar Heels had two first-round picks over the last five drafts — Cole Anthony in 2020 and Day'Ron Sharpe in 2021. Powell's selection also marks UNC's first first-rounder under coach Hubert Davis, who has been in charge for four seasons.
The stretchy wing forward Powell turns 20 years old in September. He wowed last month at the NBA Draft Combine, and generated a momentum boost for his draft stock. He tested as arguably the best athlete during that event in Chicago, with the best no-step vertical leap (37½ inches) and max (or running) vertical leap (43 inches). He also finished fourth in the three-quarter-court sprint (3.07 seconds), seventh in the shuttle run (2.79 seconds), and seventh in the pro lane drill (10.71 seconds).
"All-in on the draft," Powell said at the combine, confirming then that his stay at UNC indeed would be a fleeting one. "Door's closed."
He earned the UNC team's Defensive Player of the Year award last season. He was listed at 6-foot-6 and 195 pounds with the Tar Heels. At the draft combine, he measured 6-5¼ barefoot and 200.4 pounds, with a huge 7-foot wingspan and 8-foot-7 standing reach. That's the type of exceptional length that has had draft analysts such as Jonathan Givony of ESPN comparing Powell favorably to New Orleans Pelicans defensive stopper Herb Jones.
"I thought he fared better against (Duke phenom) Cooper Flagg than anyone else," [**an NBA scout told _Inside Carolina_ on Tuesday**](https://247sports.com/college/north-carolina/board/basketball-premium-102714/), referring to college basketball last season, while assessing Powell's defensive capabilities and growth prospects in general. "On-ball defense is the strong suit of his game, without question.
"He's a project as an offensive player right now. You'd really like to see him turn his defense into offense more. But again, this is a young guy. He was getting out of high school at this time a year ago. Not everyone is on the Cooper Flagg trajectory as a prospect."
Powell made 24 starts across 37 games in college last season, averaging 7.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game as a freshman — numbers that ranked him sixth in scoring, sixth in rebounding (RJ Davis grabbed one more board on the season), and fourth in assists for UNC. He shot 48.3 percent from the field, 37.9 percent from 3-point range and 64.8 percent on free throws. He checked in third among the Tar Heels in 3-point percentage, behind teammates Jae'Lyn Withers and Ian Jackson.
He led Carolina in plus/minus rating 10 times, four more than any other UNC player. Powell scored in double digits in 10 games on an economical number of attempts from the field. He took seven or more shots in 11 games, and connected on 51.5-percent shooting from the field (34-for-66) across the last 10 games of the season.
He delivered a season-best 18 points against Michigan State at the Maui Invitational in November, while his ACC scoring highs were 17 points against SMU in a January victory and 16 points against Miami in a March rout. Powell sank at least one 3-pointer during 23 games, and suppled 4-for-6 efforts beyond the 3-point arc against Michigan State and SMU.
"Everybody likes the long-term potential, the defense and the length and the intangibles," Givony said of Powell on Monday, during the lead-up to the draft. "By all accounts, he's a very high-character young man. … He's probably not ready to play an NBA game anytime soon, especially on the offensive end. He wasn't ready to be an impactful player, even at the college level, at times this year for North Carolina."
Powell's decision last month to skip the 5-on-5 scrimmage portions of the combine suggested confidence from his camp about his draft status. But as NBA analyst Sam Vecenie of The Athletic has noted, Powell's usage rate ranked as the lowest among Carolina's rotation players last season at just 13.8 percent. And according to Vecenie, no wing player ever with a usage rate that low from their prior season of college basketball has emerged as an NBA Draft choice.
Usage rate determines the percentage of a team's plays that a player uses on the court, focusing on plays that a player initiates or finishes, not the overall number of times they touch the ball or pass it. Effectively, usage rate measures how involved a player is during their team's possessions on offense.
Since 2008, Virginia's Ryan Dunn (2024 first-rounder), Kansas's Johnny Furphy (2024 second-rounder), Connecticut's Andre Jackson Jr. (2023 second-rounder), Kentucky's Chris Livingstone (2023 second-rounder), Duke's AJ Griffin (2022 first-rounder), Arizona's Dalen Terry (2022 first-rounder), Michigan's Caleb Houston (2022 second-rounder), Alabama's Joshua Primo (2021 first-rounder), Ohio State's Jon Diebler (2011 second-rounder) and Kentucky's DeAndre Liggins (2011 second-rounder) are the only college prospects to be drafted with a usage rate below 17 percent, as per Vecenie.
"The vision in terms of potential is a '3-and-D' player," the NBA scout, who works for a Western Conference team, told IC. "But that's later on down the road, though. What you hope for Drake Powell is that he ends up with the right organization, the right team structure. And he can be able to gain some experience to where he's capable of adding value to your team in a couple of years."