First, the punchline: Duke big men in the NBA.

Already you are nodding your head knowingly, chuckling softly and invoking the name "Cherokee Parks." Because everybody knows these guys, for all their success at the collegiate level, never pan out in the league.

Never mind that there are flaws in this long-held notion, that for every Shavlik Randolph there is an Elton Brand, for every Shelden Williams a Carlos Boozer. Never mind that the supposed poster child for the failures of Blue Devils bigs, Christian Laettner, had a better NBA career than anybody seems to realize.

This sweeping generalization has become accepted wisdom, just as it is generally accepted that players entering the pros from Duke's bitter rival, North Carolina, will succeed. (Hey, it's Michael Jordan's school; they must be good.)

It is not always so, especially for Tar Heels point guards. In fact, the failure rate among Carolina little guys is at least as great as that of Duke big guys.

This becomes pertinent now, because the latest Heels point guard, Ty Lawson, will be in this year's draft. And he might well be available when the Sixers — who seem likely to lose their point, veteran Andre Miller, to free agency — make the 17th overall choice in the June 25 selection process.

Lawson was ACC Player of the Year this past season, and the ignitor of a national championship club. But there are questions about his size (6-feet) and shot (his 47.2-percent 3-point accuracy from the forgiving NCAA arc last season notwithstanding).

And there is the history. While Raymond Felton is well on his way to fashioning a solid career in Charlotte, most of the other guys to man the point for Carolina over the last 30 years have not done nearly as well in the NBA. Jimmy Black and Ed Cota never played in the pros. Derrick Phelps played exactly three games. Jeff McInnis was a journeyman. Phil Ford, one of the most celebrated Tar Heels ever, was Rookie of the Year in 1978-79, but flamed out spectacularly.

It could be argued that before Felton, the best point guard to emerge from Chapel Hill was none other than Kenny Smith, now Charles Barkley's TV straight man (or one of them, anyway). Smith played for six teams over 10 years, averaging a shade under 13 points and winning a pair of championship rings with Houston.

So this is what Lawson is up against, among other things. And when it was mentioned to him after he worked out for the Sixers last Friday at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, he allowed that maybe Carolina point guards, while well-suited for the system they run at Chapel Hill, do not adapt nearly so well to NBA offenses.

Then he thought about it.

"It's not true," he said. "Everybody's a different person. The Carolina system is a good system. I feel like I could play in anything. I played slowdown when I was in high school. I'm a multitalented type of point guard."

And indeed there was ample evidence of that, as he whip-cracked the Heels through the NCAA Tournament in March. He looks to be smart and tough and quick, able to get to the rim against anybody. Eddie Jordan, the new Sixers coach, compared Lawson to Orlando's Jameer Nelson and San Antonio's Tony Parker.

But a more apt comparison appears to be somebody like Brevin Knight or, going back a few years, John Bagley — undersized guys with inconsistent jumpers who never become stars but play forever. ESPN's Chad Ford seemingly agrees; he ranked Lawson as the ninth-best point guard in this draft, behind Ricky Rubio, Stephen Curry, Jonny Flynn, Jrue Holliday, Tyreke Evans, Jeff Teague, Brandon Jennings and Eric Maynor.

Lawson is unfazed.

"People tell me I can't do something," he said Friday, "and I turn around and do it real well."

And certainly people continue to find things he supposedly cannot do.

"It's crazy, the perception out there," Lawson said. "Like, I was at the Combine (in Chicago, the last week in May), and (ESPN analyst) Jason Williams was like, 'Ty Lawson looks uncomfortable outside the Carolina system.' We were doing little drills. How am I going to look uncomfortable outside the system?"

Wait a minute — didn't Williams play at Duke?

"I would expect that from a Duke guy; I didn't want to say that," Lawson said. "It's crazy. We're going down, running dummy sets, and (Williams says,) 'He looks uncomfortable.' How am I looking uncomfortable, when we're just basically going against nobody? People want to put that out there."

But the history is out there, too. And that might prove to be even harder for Lawson to shake.