Gooden to announce NBA plans Friday

Drew Gooden led Kansas this season to its first Final Four appearance in eight years. Elsa/Getty Images

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- All-America forward Drew Gooden, the Big 12's leading scorer and rebounder, will announce on Friday whether he'll skip his senior season and enter the NBA Draft.

It's not an easy decision for the 6-foot-10 Gooden, who is torn between his love of college basketball and the millions of dollars awaiting him as a pro.

"Drew came in with the idea of playing four years. His mother and father have both publicly said that's what they wanted him to do," Kansas coach Roy Williams said Monday. "If it was just about money, it would be easy."

Gooden led the Big 12 with 19.8 points and 11.4 rebounds a game and was a unanimous choice as conference player of the year. He is certain to be a high draft choice and would likely be a lottery pick.

Under current scale for NBA rookies, Gooden would get no less than $2 million per year if he is one of the first five picks.

But if he stays, the Jayhawks will immediately become one of the favorites to win the NCAA championship because they would lose only one starter off the team that went 33-4 and lost to eventual champion Maryland in the national semifinals.

Williams said he had just turned over to Gooden all the information he had gleaned from discussions with 10 different NBA teams.

"It's not any guesstimate. He's going to be a high pick," Williams said. "For a kid who's 19, 20, 21 years old, the amount of money you're talking about is unbelievable.

"Yet ... there's no price you can put on being a kid. I've never coached a player who didn't say later on that basketball stopped being fun, that college basketball was a lot more fun than being a professional basketball player."

Williams said he would meet with Gooden later on Monday and then talk with him some more before Friday.

"As for telling him what to do, I'm not going to do that," Williams said. "I'm not even going to tell him what I would do in that same scenario."

As he's done with other high-profile undergraduates, he'll ask Gooden to phone him with the news because telling his coach face-to-face that he's leaving early would be tough.

 

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