Every once in a while, an unpaid athlete in the multigazillion-dollar industry of amateur sports comes up with a creative way to flex his limited muscle to embarrass the powers that be in college athletics.

This happened on Tuesday, when Pittsburgh graduate transfer Cam Johnson announced he'll be transferring to UNC despite his former college coach, Pitt's Kevin Stallings, attempting to block him from going to another ACC school.

Johnson's muscle flex happened not just in his decision to ignore Pitt's attempt to block him but also in a perfectly worded, expertly argued statement where he points out the logical and moral failures in Pitt's decision. It read like it was written by – well, by a summa cum laude college graduate, which Johnson became in May.

Here's the most relevant part of Johnson's statement:

"Besides incorrectly attempting to block me, there are other reasons Pitt should have immediately granted my full release. During my last season at Pitt, Coach Dixon left to become the head coach at TCU, Coach Stallings left Vanderbilt to come to Pitt, we had one director of athletics leave and another (Heather Lyke) come to Pitt, and just in the last week the associate AD at Pitt who presented the case against me in my hearing has left to join another school.

"All five of these individuals left their jobs under contract and all had the freedom to move as they please. As a student-athlete, who is not a paid employee of the school, and a graduate, shouldn't I be granted the same freedom of movement?"

Cam Johnson still has two years of eligibility left and has decided to transfer from Pitt to North Carolina.

After reading that, Stallings should sheepishly put his tail between his legs, wish Johnson the best of luck, and remove any and all restrictions on Johnson's transfer. Because this illuminates so much of what's wrong about the messed-up power dynamics of college basketball. It's a common-sense argument: Why do I, the unpaid student-athlete, have to stay loyal to a university when they, the handsomely paid coaches and administrators, do not?

Here's the deal with Johnson: He redshirted one of his three seasons at Pitt, so he still has two seasons of college eligibility remaining. Because of his diligent work in the classroom – something for which Johnson should be commended, not punished – he got his college degree in three years. This means he's eligible to become a graduate transfer for his final two seasons of eligibility; however, Pitt is citing NCAA bylaws to force Johnson to sit out a full season at UNC before being able to play his final season in 2018-19.

Here's why this is B.S., and directly hurts the student-athlete that so many coaches claim to be working in the best interests of: Johnson is a borderline NBA prospect. DraftExpress.com had him ranked 72nd among all college sophomores last season. But a 6-foot-7 guard who shoots 41.7 percent from three, as Johnson did last year, always has a shot at the next level. As long as that player is able to prove himself at the college level.

And there's the rub.

Simply put, Pitt was trash last season – or at least trash compared to the rest of the ACC, which is the most stacked conference in college basketball. Pitt won four games in ACC play and missed both the NCAA tournament and the NIT. Since then the team has suffered a rash of transfers.

This is not a situation that bodes well for Johnson's chance at success during the final two seasons of his college career. And that would mean it drastically impacts Johnson's chance at success at the next level, since playing for a dreadful college team generally does not generate NBA interest (with Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz being the notable exceptions).

So Johnson made the smart and obvious choice. He upped and left, deciding to transfer to one of the best possible places for both exposure and success: Chapel Hill, N.C., home of the defending national champion North Carolina Tar Heels, who also happen to be an ACC rival of Stallings' Pitt team (as much as a 4-14 team can be considered a "rival" for the defending national champs).

Pitt coach Kevin Stallings.

I understand why a college coach would want to block a player from going to a conference opponent. Pitt put three years of developmental work into Johnson – from the college scholarship to the basketball and weight training to the medical care – and likely invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the young man. Now, North Carolina is able to reap what Pitt sowed. But you know what? Coaches leave in the middle of contracts all the time, so much so that a head coach's contract in college basketball is no more than a piece of paper if you're able to get another wealthy school to pay the buyout. Sure, Johnson has received plenty of benefits from the University of Pittsburgh. He's also been an unpaid athlete for three years, someone who has been a 30-plus-game-a-year performer in college basketball's premier conference that brings in oodles of money, and someone who was a model for the phrase "student-athlete" that is too often a fraudulent construction.

I don't expect this to drag out long. Johnson ought to be cleared to head to UNC, restriction-free, sooner instead of later. One, it's a PR nightmare for Pitt. And two, despite the fact that the NCAA is so often low-hanging fruit for pundits looking for a scapegoat, the NCAA has made plenty of steps in recent years that has moved it in the direction of athletes' rights.

What I enjoyed most about Johnson's letter wasn't that it certainly helped his case against Pitt by airing his case publicly, and showing the school's hypocrisy in blocking his transfer. What I enjoyed most is what it illuminated about the current state of college sports: That in an industry where the student-athletes have so often been historically powerless, the power dynamics are shifting – in fits and in starts and in institutional embarrassments like the one Stallings is perpetrating against Johnson – more toward justice.