Stu's Hunt Down: Former Wolves first-round pick Will Avery

Name: Will Avery Claim to Fame, Minnesota: as the Wolves stare down the prospect of drafting a Duke point guard with their pick in this year's NBA draft, let's pause to remember the last Duke point guard taken by the franchise. Avery was the 14^th-overall selection in the 1999 NBA Draft (two picks ahead of Ron Artest, ten picks ahead of Andrei Kirilenko), and had ample opportunity to establish himself as Minnesota's PG of the future. The final numbers: 2.7 ppg, 1.4 assists/gm. It's worth mentioning that those numbers are greater than the NBA stats for Minnesota's current PG of the future, Ricky Rubio. Claim to Fame, Everywhere Else: Avery remains best known in the States for his two-year run at Duke, which ended as the heavily-favored loser of the 1999 Championship game to Connecticut. This remains one of the greatest moments in NCAA basketball history in that Duke lost AND I won my office pool. In the years since the Wolves and Avery parted ways, he has not returned to the NBA, but he has been almost every place else. Where He Is Now: he signed with the plucky Czarni Slupsk squad of Poland in February. Glorious Randomness #1: there were four Duke players taken with the first 14 picks of the '99 draft. Your task is to name the other three without internet cheating. Glorious Randomness #2: the night of the Final Four (Saturday, March 27^th, 1999), I was in a hospital delivery room with my wife, who was finally about to give birth to our first child after 50-odd hours of labor. Although I was focused on the action/woman shrieking curses right in front of me, I was able to catch the occasional glimpse of the Connecticut/OSU game on the TV, and let out a sotto voce "woo-hoo" when the Huskies won. And that's why my oldest daughter is named Khalid el-Amin Neuman.