Duke has 3 lottery picks in 2025 NBA Draft, adds to program lead
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Duke’s elite basketball brand was once again on display during Wednesday night’s NBA Draft in Brooklyn.
The Blue Devils had 3 lottery picks in the 79th edition of the draft, which just added to its program lead in that department. With Cooper Flagg going 1st overall to the Dallas Mavericks, Kon Knueppel being taken at No. 4 by the Charlotte Hornets and Khaman Maluach getting picked at No. 10 by the Phoenix Suns, Duke now has an astounding 33 lottery picks. At 1 point not too long ago, Duke was tied with Kentucky with the most lottery selections at 20 each.
That is no longer the case, of course, with Duke blowing past every other program on the way to having 33 after Wednesday night’s trio headed off to Dallas, Charlotte and Phoenix.
The ACC Network social media account celebrated Duke’s achievement at the NBA Draft with this post:
It wasn’t even a game on Wednesday night, and it wasn’t even centered on college basketball. But leave it to Duke to still take center stage among the other elite programs at the NBA Draft, including having the No. 1 overall pick in Flagg. Duke only needed 10 picks in this draft to get those 3 lottery picks, too, which makes what the Blue Devils did on Wednesday night that much more impressive.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
