Editor’s Note: Kansan sportswriter Frank Tankard will profile a former Kansas men’s basketball player each day this week, leading up to the Jayhawks’ first game tonight. Each player featured took the court for the Jayhawks sometime during the last four years. This is the last installment of the five-part series.

The first thing Drew Gooden did was buy a house. The Memphis Grizzlies had selected him as the fourth pick of the 2002 NBA draft, and he figured he’d be there for a long time, maybe raise a family there some day.

Three years and two teams later, Gooden, a former Kansas All-American, isn’t about to start planting seeds.

Now in the midst of a season with the Cleveland Cavaliers in which he’s averaging 14.1 points and 9.5 rebounds per game, he has a different take on NBA life than he had when he left Kansas after his junior year as the program’s 14th all-time leading scorer.

“It’s a business,” said Gooden, a 6-foot-10 forward. “It’s not just a game you play.”

When the Memphis Grizzlies started the 2002-03 season with 10 straight losses, Gooden, seven months removed from playing in the Final Four, was not digging it. KU players are not used to losing.

To make matters worse, coach Doc Rivers never seemed to find a place for him, Gooden said. Half the time, Gooden would start on the bench, which was something new for him.

After 51 games with a 12.1-point scoring average, the Grizzlies traded Gooden to the Orlando Magic. He sold his house in Memphis and left town a little wiser.

“I didn’t know we’d be in last place in Tennessee,” he said. “It was a learning experience.”

The situation turned out well for Gooden. He started all but one of Orlando’s 19 remaining games and, best of all, he got to play in the playoffs as his former Memphis teammates watched from home.

After losing in the first round to the Detroit Pistons, Gooden went into the off-season with high hopes once again.

But those hopes were demolished when the Magic started with a 1-20 record in 2003. This time he had to endure the league’s worst season in its entirety.

Meanwhile, Memphis improved to a 50-32 record and made the playoffs. Gooden felt like he was cursed.

“That was the most down point in my career,” he said.

Gooden wanted this season to be different. Maybe, playing alongside young phenom LeBron James, he could re-establish himself as the dominating player he was at Kansas.

Some people said that was never going to happen.

“There were a lot of question marks,” he said. “I felt like all eyes were on me coming to Cleveland.”

So he called up a high-end sports club in Los Angeles and shelled out $600 per week to work with well-respected trainer Anthony Slater.

“He was one of the most coachable athletes I’ve worked with,” Slater said. “He wasn’t here to get a quick sweat and leave. He was here to take something away from it.”

Roy Williams, who talked to Gooden on Monday, said this patient attitude had gradually developed in Gooden through the years.

“I think with each and every year he’s gotten more mature and more focused,” Williams said.

Gooden also practiced his jump shot and post moves hours a day. He wanted to be a more complete player.

“I spent two months straight to trying to get my body and my mind right,” he said.

Now he is having the most consistent season of his career for the Cavaliers, who, with a record of 32-28, are on the brink of making the playoffs for the first time since 1998.

Gooden’s biggest improvement has been in rebounding. His team-leading 9.5 rebounds per game ranks 12th in the league, which is no small feat considering he has to share the boards with Cleveland’s 7-foot-3 center, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who ranks second in the league in offensive rebounds.

However, he has been streaky at times shooting the ball this season. He scored a career-high 33 points against Milwaukee Jan. 30, but has also scored in single-digits in one out of every four games.

Coach Paul Silas left Gooden out of the starting lineup for the first time all season for two games at the start of March. Gooden has since come back to help the team win three of its last for games.

Gooden said he would like to settle down for a few years with the Cavaliers. But he’s not banking on it. He knows better.

“I love to be here, love to play here, love to win here and I’d love to win a championship here,” he said. “But it’s all just goals and dreams. You never really know.”

— Edited by Lori Bettes