Duke University is one of the nation's truly elite basketball programs. It has played in the Final Four 18 times, in the NCAA title game 11 times and won five national championships, and overall, it is fourth all-time in wins among all basketball schools.
The university has produced many NBA players, some of whom became stars, and it almost seems to manufacture standout players year after year. The Los Angeles Lakers have taken four Blue Devils in the NBA draft, and one of them has been living well in the pros for the last several years.
Here is a look at each of those four men.
Howard Hurt -- guard
Hurt averaged 13.7 points and 7.2 rebounds in three years with the Blue Devils. The Lakers took him in the 11th round of the 1961 draft, but he never played in the NBA.
Jay Buckley -- center
In three years with the Blue Devils, Buckley put up 10.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game. After he was taken by the Lakers in the eighth round of the 1964 draft, he didn't play in the NBA.
Ryan Kelly -- forward
Kelly played four years at Duke University, averaging 7.5 points and 3.7 rebounds a game and winning the NCAA title in 2010 as a freshman. The Lakers then took him in the second round of the 2013 draft.
He spent his first three NBA seasons with the Lakers and registered 6.5 points and 3.3 rebounds in 20.5 minutes a game during that time. He played one more season after that with the Atlanta Hawks before continuing his basketball career overseas.
Brandon Ingram -- forward
The Lakers hoped they had secured a franchise cornerstone when they took Ingram with the No. 2 pick in the 2016 draft. He scored 17.3 points a game in his lone year with the Blue Devils and was pegged as a potential future NBA star.
In three years with Los Angeles, he gradually developed into a legitimate scoring threat and put up 16.1 points and 18.3 points a game in his last two years with the team. It then shipped him to the New Orleans Pelicans in 2019 as part of the trade that brought it Anthony Davis.
Since then, Ingram has elevated his game, and he has averaged over 20 points per contest in every season since that trade.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Every Duke University player drafted by the Lakers
