Andy Katz has placed the comment "Three lottery picks on the same college team? It's never happened..." on the front page of ESPN's Men's College Basketball section. One supposes that 1999 may have been so long ago, that no one remembers it, but if you check the 1999 NBA Draft you will find that one team did have three lottery picks: #1 Elton Brand (Duke, to Chicago), #11 Trajan Langdon (Duke, to Cleveland), and #13 Corey Maggette (Duke, to Seattle.) William Avery just missed being a lottery pick by one spot, being the 14th pick.
Then again, in some sense, it may be true. Duke actually had four lottery picks on that team, not three. Shane Battier was also a lottery pick last year, making four on the 1998-9 team.
When one looks at it, it is truly incredible. The 1997-8 team had three lottery picks (Battier, Brand, and Langdon). 1998-9 had four, listed above. And if Jay Williams and Mike Dunleavy go as high as projected, 1999-2000 and 2000-1 will both have had three (Battier, Dunleavy, and Williams.) Depending on the draft position of Chris Duhon and Daniel Ewing, when they finally join the NBA, those numbers could be even higher.