NBA Sunday

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Sometime soon, Tyler Hansbrough will end one of college basketball's great careers and move on to a very good pro one.

Won't he?

"He's a Carolina guy," New Jersey's Vince Carter said. "Think about it."

The Tar Heels are a tight basketball fraternity — Larry Brown was out of work until fellow Carolina guy Michael Jordan gave him a job in Charlotte — so Carter's opinion isn't surprising. Nor is the agreement he would find among others of the program's alums.

"I think Tyler's going to be a very good NBA player. He's worked so hard on his game these last four years, and he's got one more chance to win a national championship," said Atlanta's Marvin Williams, who played on North Carolina's last title team in 2005. "He'll go down as one of the best college players to ever play, and he's ready to take that next step to the NBA and I feel like he'll have a great career in the NBA."

Maybe he shouldn't be so sure.

ESPN.com had Hansbrough ranked only 34th last week on its list of top 100 players who could be available for the draft, while nbadraft.net had him ticketed for the 25th pick in its mock draft. Neither even considered him the top North Carolina prospect, listing point guard Ty Lawson higher.…

Larry Brown and Boris Diaw both came to the same conclusion when they arrived in Charlotte: The Bobcats were a young team without much knowledge of winning.

They're not so young anymore — and maybe they're done being losers, too.

Brown is well-known for his preference for veteran players over youngsters, a luxury he didn't have early in the season. But the Bobcats got older when they acquired Diaw and Raja Bell, two players who had played on winning teams, in a trade with Phoenix on Dec. 10.

"At first, we didn't have older guys other than Nazr (Mohammed), and Nazr's been great," Brown said. "But we got Raja and then we got Juwan Howard, and having older veteran guys that are character guys has helped the young kids, especially dealing with me."…

The Boston Celtics weren't just the NBA's best in 2008. They also were the best organization in sports, according to one set of rankings.

Bizjournals gave two of its top three spots to NBA clubs, rating the Los Angeles Lakers third.