The North Carolina Tar Heels' received bad news regarding their 2026-27 roster, with Henri Veesaar planning on entering the 2026 NBA Draft. Veesaar plans on staying in the draft, which leaves a big roster hole to fill for the Tar Heels.

With Michael Malone putting together his first roster, center was a key position. North Carolina made Veesaar a priority, flying out to California to meet with him. But now we know that the Bears also raised their price and were willing to pay a lot to keep Veesaar.

Matt Norlander reported on Friday that multiple teams tried to lure Veesaar into the transfer portal, offering him upwards of $6 million to enter and join their program.

By the way, multiple schools tried to lure Henri Veesaar into the portal in the past few weeks by offering him at least $6 million, per multiple sources. UNC's NIL negotiations never approached that range, but the Heels definitely could've cleared $4 million had he opted to stay. https://t.co/WwZMcrEdEy

But for Veesaar, his loyalty remained to UNC and it was either going back to the Tar Heels or entering the NBA Draft and staying there.

North Carolina will now have to make a run at other bigs in the portal. The issue is that money is flying around and there's a lot of competition to land prospects. With time running out, UNC is going to have to up its pursuit of these targets in hopes of landing them.

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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC Basketball: Other programs tried to lure Henri Veesaar to portal