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CHARLOTTE -- The annual dismantling of North Carolina's college basketball teams came and went Thursday night, and the state's pro team took another shot at significance in the NBA draft.

A draft deemed weak by those presumably in position to make such judgments saw the Charlotte Bobcats take Duke's Gerald Henderson with the 12th pick and saw eight players from the state go in the first round. Larry Brown, the team's coach, and Michael Jordan, the team's managing partner, both former North Carolina Tar Heels, joked about making Henderson the first Duke player drafted by a Charlotte professional team.

"We're really happy with the pick, even though Michael and I had a hard time drafting a Dookie," Brown said.

Jordan didn't sound like he was completely joking.

"Sometimes it's hard to put those feelings away," he said. "There's something about our blood that makes it very difficult to choose a Duke player."

After the Bobcats took Henderson, five of the next eight players had ties to the state. Not all went where they or anyone else thought they would go. Davidson's Stephen Curry, the Charlotte kid who grew up watching his dad Dell play for the Hornets, went seventh to the Golden State Warriors, a team he'd declined to work out for.

Tyler Hansbrough, of North Carolina, went 13th to the Indiana Pacers, and college teammate Ty Lawson went 18th to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who had already drafted two point guards earlier in the draft. Lawson was later traded to the Denver Nuggets, coached by former UNC guard George Karl.

James Johnson of Wake Forest went 16th to the Chicago Bulls, and teammate Jeff Teague went 19th to the Atlanta Hawks. In a span of 15 minutes, Wake basketball was decimated.

Point guard Eric Maynor, a Fayetteville native who played in college at Virginia Commonwealth, went 20th, and Carolina's Wayne Ellington went 28th.

The annual draft has traditionally been a night when ACC fans watch the best players move on, and the pro teams from Charlotte had been a place where they often landed dating back to the days when the old ABA Carolina Cougars funneled players out of Chapel Hill and High Point and Raleigh and even Cullowhee.

But not Durham.

"This is a business," Jordan said. "Sometimes we have to supersede our feelings."

Henderson, whose dad played in the NBA, said he's known Brown all his life, having family ties that go back to his days growing up in Pennsylvania. And he said he anticipates the ribbing he'll get from all the former players from Chapel Hill.

"They're my bosses now," Henderson said. "So I'm going to have to put up with it. It'll be fun. I know I'll be hearing all the Tar Heel stuff every day, which is very unfortunate. But I guess that all comes with it."

The team won a franchise-record 35 games last season, and Brown said one of the reasons the Bobcats didn't make a playoff push was the team had no backup to shooting guard Raja Bell. That was really the only thing Charlotte wanted out of this draft.

"He has a very big upside," Jordan said of Henderson. "We're willing to take that gamble, even though he's a Duke player."

Brown made light of Jordan's comments as he reiterated the big picture, which is to somehow connect the current North Carolina pro team with those of the past, as well as with fans who follow college basketball and tolerate the pro team. The Bobcats will now have three former ACC players on the roster and any number on the bench and in the front office.

"This is the Charlotte Bobcats," Brown said. "We represent everybody in this area. That's the one neat thing about being the pro team in North Carolina. They love basketball. The fact that Gerald played at Duke, people can follow his career. If he helps us win, it doesn't matter what college jersey he wore."

The state's pro teams have brought in a lot of local players through the years, players like State's Vann Williford and Guilford's Jerry Crocker and Western's David Smith and High Point's Gene Littles and Carolina's J.R. Reid. And to this day, the organization is dominated by North Caroli nians such as Jordan; team president Fred Whitfield of Greensboro; Jeff Capel, who coached at A&T; and Phil Ford and Dave Hanners, who came with Brown.

But until Thursday, there had never been one from Duke.

"I still can't believe we did it," Brown said.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com