Emotional reactions are common when a team makes the first signing of free agency. If you feel more comfortable, add the word questionable before the word signing in the previous sentence. Go ahead, I know you want to.

Good. Now that that is out of the way, I say we put emotions aside and try and look at the Drew Gooden signing with as much rational thought as possible, through pluses and minuses, despite not having all the facts or the Bucks side of the story quite yet. But I promise, when we get those things, we’ll examine them.

+  Plus: Drew Gooden is actually pretty good.

He’s a little goofy. But overall, Gooden puts up very good numbers year after year. His career PER of 16.5 is better than any player who manned the power forward spot for the Bucks last season was able to put up. He’s also grabbed 10.8% of the offensive rebounds available while he’s been out on the court for his career, a number better than any Buck that’s currently on the roster produced last season. And I haven’t even gotten to Gooden’s offense yet, possibly the strongest part of his game. In every season of his career Gooden has averaged double figures in scoring and he appears a lock to finish between 55-60% from around the rim.

-  Minus: Five years? For Drew Gooden?

Not only am I listing this as a minus, but I’m going to point out that nearly everyone had this exact reaction upon hearing about this deal. Whether or not their is an option on the last year or two of this deal appears up in the air, some are saying there is while others haven’t mentioned it, but five years would be a lot of Drew Gooden. Gooden has played for eight teams in his eight years in the league and will be signing his third contract since his rookie deal expired. The Cavs initially signed him to a three year $23 million extension in 2006 and he received a one year $4.5 million ($5 million with incentives) deal from the Mavericks before last season. Gooden didn’t play bad last season, 10.9/7.7, but he didn’t significantly outplay his career numbers or anything like that.

That’s what strikes me as so curious about giving Gooden more money than he made last season and a long term contract. Hasn’t Gooden more or less established himself as a journeyman? Shouldn’t he be taking less money to get more years? Again, it’s not that I don’t think Drew Gooden is talented, he clearly is, but if the Bucks are really serious about winning a title, their focus should be on getting good value out of their deals. Ersan Ilyasova made just over $2 million last season to put up a season that was very close to Gooden’s. So why bother giving Gooden extra years if Ilyasova can give Milwaukee the same production when factoring in improvements in Ilyasova’s game? Well that’s where our next plus comes in. (more…)