DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke is doing it, and Duke is winning recruiting battles because of it, but Duke is not necessarily endorsing it. The three-year plan? Please, do not call it the three-year plan. Do not call it a plan at all. Call it an adjustment, an adaptation.

Don't call it a plan.

"This is not," said Duke senior associate athletics director Chris Kennedy, "the Duke three-year pipeline to the pros."

It just looks that way.

	Jason Williams is leaving after three seasons at Duke. Will backcourt mate Chris Duhon follow him to the NBA with a degree after next season?

All-American guard Jason Williams was the first, and by all accounts he will not be the last. Williams is a joint pioneer with Duke, not so much the guinea pig but the accomplice, and the trail they are blazing together is so simple, so obvious, it is a wonder no one thought of it before. Williams will graduate from Duke, and he will enter the NBA draft, and he will do both things three school years after he first stepped foot on campus.

Frankly, his mother wouldn't have it any other way.

"We didn't send Jason to Duke to play basketball," said Althea Williams. "We sent him to Duke to get a Duke education, and while he was there to play basketball. As it turns out he can do both and still get on with his NBA career, and that's why we're so happy with this decision. It's the best of both worlds."

Williams' three-year odyssey is the result of a modern-day basketball earthquake that finally shook the Duke program after it finished second to Connecticut in the 1999 NCAA championship game. Before then, Duke had never lost an underclassman to the NBA. Not Grant Hill, not Christian Laettner, not nobody. Within six weeks of that game, Duke lost three: sophomores Elton Brand and William Avery, and freshman Corey Maggette.

Brand's decision was a no-brainer, the next step for the consensus national player of the year whose family was under economic duress. Avery's decision was less sensible from a basketball standpoint, but understandable given his family's financial situation. Still, his decision to follow Brand into the draft surprised Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. And when Maggette decided to come out after starting just three games, Krzyzewski was stunned. Worse, he was unprepared.

He wouldn't be unprepared again.

Williams was a freshman the following season, thrust into a starting role Krzyzewski assumed would be Avery's. By the time Williams was a sophomore, it was apparent he could be the next Duke player to leave early for the NBA. The only question was when. After that season was over, Kennedy says, everyone involved -- Williams, his family, Krzyzewski, Kennedy himself -- discussed the options.

Williams wanted to play in the NBA, and didn't feel he needed to wait two more years to do it. His parents wanted him to graduate. Kennedy looked over Williams' transcripts and saw the possibilities.

"Summer school is a big component in all this," said Kennedy, who oversees academic support for Duke student-athletes. "You can get ahead in the summer, and Jason had been here one entire summer (after his freshman year)."

	“	We're trying to change with our culture. The fact of the matter is, a lot of (recruits) express a great interest in going to the NBA early. We want to be pro-active, and Jason is a great pioneer to graduate in three years and then be a pro. ”
		— Chris Collins, Duke assistant coach

At Duke, students need 34 credits -- one class equals one credit -- to graduate. That's four classes per semester for four years, plus two more classes that generally are taken in the summer but can be taken in a five-class semester.

Summer school is the key. Duke has two summer sessions, and students usually take two classes per session. Go for a full summer, and you're almost a semester ahead. Play international basketball for half of the next summer, but take two classes in the other summer session, and you're getting close to being a full year ahead. Add a handful of five-class semesters in the spring or fall -- it's difficult, Kennedy says, but athletes do it all the time -- and you're ahead of the four-year pace more still.

"It's not easy, but it's not the hardest thing in the world, either," Williams said this summer. "You've got to have discipline, but I'm motivated. I've got some great goals waiting for me, so it's not hard to have discipline."

Williams probably isn't going to be the only current Duke junior to try this three-and-out scenario. Center Carlos Boozer also has said he hopes to enter the 2002 NBA draft while coming as close as possible to graduating in three years. Boozer said he might need to take an additional course or two in the summer or through correspondence.

"I want to (enter the 2002 draft) -- I expect to," Boozer said. "I need to have a good year, and I'd like to win another national championship. But I expect a good year."

So far, he's having it. Boozer is averaging 17 points and 8.4 rebounds and leads the team in shooting from the floor (56.3 percent) and the line (79.4 percent).

Next in line? Sophomore Chris Duhon, who hasn't publicly stated the desire to graduate in three years and enter the 2003 NBA draft, but has said it remains a possibility. Duhon said he, too, is on pace to meet graduation requirements a year ahead of schedule. And he gives the credit to Williams.

"I guess Jason started this trend," Duhon said. "It ought to be attractive to guys who want a degree but don't want to stay in school four years."

	Jason Williams has followed Duke's guide to early NBA riches with a college degree.

Especially because it is getting easier to do. Last summer the NCAA passed a rule allowing incoming freshman student-athletes to take college classes the summer after they graduate from high school. At Duke, that would mean getting two of the 34 credits out of the way before August of their freshman year. Duke's only scholarship freshman, guard Daniel Ewing, enrolled this summer.

Next summer, so could a handful of Duke's awesome freshman class of 2002-03. The three-year plan, or whatever, might appeal most to 6-foot-9 forwards Shelden Williams of Oklahoma and Shavlik Randolph of North Carolina and 6-11 center Michael Thompson of Illinois.

"We're trying to change with our culture," said Duke assistant Chris Collins. "The fact of the matter is, a lot of (recruits) express a great interest in going to the NBA early. We want to be pro-active, and Jason is a great pioneer to graduate in three years and then be a pro."

There is ego involved, and if Duke is playing to a recruit's ego, what of it? Some schools send high school recruits a doctored photo of their jersey hanging in the gym's rafters. Duke tells a kid yes, he can go to the NBA early -- and he can take a degree with him.

"I'm not comfortable thinking, before a kid even comes here, that we're planning for him to be gone in three years," Kennedy said. "Our thought is, he's going to be a four-year Duke student like most of our other students. But if something happens and we need to accelerate that, we can try our best. We use summer school to alleviate the pressure of a lot of things. Maybe a kid has a really hard lab, or another course he knows will require extra reading or whatever. We have a kid take the challenging courses in the summer when he's not doing much else. In a certain sense everyone in the program is positioned to get out early if they really wanted to push it and go after it, because of the way we handle summer school.

"The bottom line is we've responded to situation in a way that makes sense. It doesn't mean we're setting up a program for it, because what we still view as the ideal experience is the four-year Duke experience."

But ...

"But it doesn't mean a three-year experience can't be a rich one."

Gregg Doyel covers college basketball for The Charlotte Observer and is a regular contributor for ESPN.com. He can be reached at gdoyel@charlotteobserver.com.