Gooden to the Spurs?

This should be the final basketball observation for the day. John Hollinger predicts that the Cavs will pick up Joe Smith, and the Spurs will pick up Drew Gooden. He rightly notes that Gooden would be a strange pickup for the Spurs: "The guy who's known for mental errors and has a medusa beard, signing on with the league's must buttoned-down, no-nonsense outfit?" But in many ways the move makes sense. As I've already outlined, if you look past his penchant for freelancing and his mental lapses, Gooden is the best player available - an even more productive player than Joe Smith. The Spurs have more money to throw at Gooden than any other contender, and they don't yet have the talent on their roster to reasonably expect to make a run at the Lakers for the Western Conference title.

Would signing Gooden put the Spurs over the top. I don't know about that. He's certainly an above average power forward, but by no means a great one. He does, however, provide a bit of an upgrade over Matt Bonner, at least in terms of rebounding, interior scoring, and defense. Bonner is a useful player whose excellent shooting and low turnover rate give him a PER of 16.37, slightly higher than Gooden's 15.54. But where Gooden is an excellent rebounder, Bonner is decidedly below average, getting about 3 rebounds less per 40 minutes than Gooden.

Even if Gooden couldn't beat out Bonner, he'd be a huge upgrade over Fabricio Oberto, Kurt Thomas, and Pops Mensah-Bonsu off the bench. That would greatly improve the Spurs frontcourt depth, giving them another scorer for their front line.