Wesley original nomad
By Chuck Woodling
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
http://www2.kusports.com/news/2009/a...riginal-nomad/
If I walked along Massachusetts Street and asked passing pedestrians if they had heard of Walt Wesley, I would want to do it on a warm day.
I couldn’t stand on Mass that long in cold weather.
Who was Walt Wesley? He was a slender 6-foot-11 center on some of coach Ted Owens’ quality Kansas University men’s basketball teams of the mid-1960s.
Wesley averaged an impressive 19.3 points a game during his three-year KU career — freshmen weren’t eligible then — and he went on to play 10 seasons in the NBA.
Now that they’ve watered down the requirements for hanging jerseys in the south end of Allen Fieldhouse, I suppose a case could be made for Wesley joining the throng, but that’s not why his name surfaced.
I ran across Wesley while doing research on Drew Gooden.
As you probably know, Gooden has become an NBA vagabond. A first-team All-American and the Big 12 Conference player of the year in 2002, Gooden was the fourth player selected in the ’02 NBA Draft.
“We've got the rookie of the year,” Memphis Grizzlies general manager Jerry West said after the draft. “You can write that.”
Many sportswriters did, but before Gooden’s rookie year was over, the 6-foot-10 former Jayhawk was wearing an Orlando Magic uniform. A season or so later, he was peddled to Cleveland and then on to Chicago, where he started the 2008-09 season, only to be swapped to Sacramento.
After playing one game for Sacramento, the Kings executed an undisclosed buyout of the $7.1 million remaining on Gooden’s contract. A few days later, San Antonio offered him $1.4 million — all the Spurs had left under the salary cap — and he signed.
Have you been keeping track? To save you the math, Gooden has been with six NBA teams in seven seasons. But that’s not a record for a former KU player. Wesley owns that distinction. He was with eight clubs during his 10-year NBA career (1965-1976).
Wesley is one team ahead of Danny Manning, now a member of Bill Self’s staff, but Manning played for his seven clubs during a 15-year career.
At the age of 28, Gooden seems likely to tie Manning and perhaps even reach and surpass Wesley. If he does, he probably wouldn’t mind because Gooden seems to be taking his nomadic life in stride.
“Fortunately, I'm not married, and I don't have any kids,” he told the San Antonio newspaper. “I'm like a vagabond. I can just pick up my stuff and go to the next city.”
Top-five picks in the NBA Draft are supposed to boast All-Star potential. That isn’t always the case, of course. Raef LaFrentz, for example, was the third collegian tapped in 1999 and has been mostly a journeyman, a tag now hanging on Gooden.
It’s no secret why LaFrentz and Gooden failed to live up to their potential. To put it politely, their offensive skills are stronger than their defensive abilities. To put it another way, neither one could guard the Phog Allen statue.
On the bright side, both LaFrentz, who has played for four NBA teams in the last decade, and Gooden have made millions and millions of dollars. It’s just that Gooden has had to spend more of his salary on suitcases.
One of the 11 comments following the article:
jaybate (anonymous) says...
Wuck Choodling seems to have a bag of cement, where most have a heart.
Woodling lacks much talent and tends to project this onto a lot of persons he writes about.
Anyone who hangs on in the NBA for any length of time is doing great. In the pros, talent has to have consistency to play night in and night out. But there are many other jobs on a pro team other than playing night in and night out. Each position has a back up who has a job to provide practice for the guy ahead of him, and occassionally fill some minutes. Clearly, team after team realizes that their bigs would be improved if Drew Gooden, who lacks the consistency a regular needs, were on the team for at least a year or two, to push some starters in practice. Gooden and LaFrentz (especially LaFrentz) have been the professional equivalents of Matt the Red Head on this year's KU basketball team. All teams need journeyman backups to work with their starters. Gooden and LaFrentz have nothing at all to apologize for playing in this capacity.
Woodling, frankly, has filled this role most of his career at the LJW.
Fact: Gooden has already made far more bones than Woodling has made in his entire one-stop LJW career. And no knock on the LJW, but a one-stop at the LJW does not imply greatness on the part of a journalist. It implies a journeyman and there is nothing wrong with being a journeyman.
FWIW, Gooden's problem has never been defense. It has been lack of discipline in all aspects of his game that has lead to erratic performances--up one night and down the next. He also has never been able to make consistently good choices on the floor. He has great talent, but has never had the mental capacity to hone it to consistency. Some persons are like this; it does not make them chumps. It is just their particular cross to bear. Wilt couldn't shoot free throws. Gooden can't make good choices on the floor consistently. Woodling can't write columns good enough to move up in the world of journalism. Now, he's even struggling writing columns with enough heart to be good filler. But we can respect Chuck for hanging on in the business, just as we can respect Gooden and LaFrentz for doing the same in their businesses.
Woodling is consistent. He is consistently mediocre...if that. And look what it has gotten him...an entire career writing junk like this on a small town newspaper.
Woodling owes Gooden, and LaFrentz, apologies. He needs to tell them, "Way to roll your sleeves up and keep doing you jobs, even when it isn't star work. I'm in the same boat in my profession and there is nothing to be ashamed of about it."
But he won't.
Perhaps my point here is obvious, but I'm going to say it anyway. jaybate just brutalized the writer.
He claims Gooden should not be ashamed of being what Woodling is, which is barely mediocre enough to make it in their profession.
But he does not really mean that, because this is really meant as a back-handed complement. His real point is that the writer is either unconsciously self-hating, and hanging that hate on the similar players he writes about, or he is a hypocrite.
He didn't use any KY.
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