Kansas basketball: 5 Jayhawks who didn’t live up to the NBA hype

4. Kansas basketball NBA busts: Drew Gooden

Another Jayhawks’ forward who never quite fulfilled his promise as an NBA player was Drew Gooden. Kansas basketball fans fondly remember Gooden as part of one of former head coach Roy Williams’ finest recruiting classes.

Alongside Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison, Gooden helped Kansas become a Big 12 powerhouse. Gooden’s finest hour came in his junior year when he led the nation in rebounding and won the Big 12’s Player of the Year award.

That performance inspired Gooden to go pro, where he was selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2002 draft by the Memphis Grizzlies. Gooden didn’t even last one year with the Grizzlies, who flipped him to the Orlando Magic at the trade deadline.

That deal would be the start of a trend for Gooden, who suited up for ten teams over the course of his 14-year pro career. Gooden’s finest moments came in Cleveland, where he put up good numbers with a young LeBron James, but he never was able to stick in one place for too long.

There is no doubt that Gooden was a perfectly fine pro who could serve as a backup big man, but he never quite lived up to the billing of a top-five draft pick. Gooden’s inability to stick with one team for a while didn’t help his legacy as more than an above-average role player or below-average starter.