We better not give up on Gooden this year, he's almost a lock to start now that Swift and SAR are taken. Barring some weird sign-and-trade.
And next year if he's not working out, as someone brought up before, his good numbers will get him a better FA contract elsewhere. Nothing to feel bad about.
All he has to do is get with Z and Mike Brown and clean up the defensive rotations. If he only has this 1 thing to focus on this year he can only improve, especially since we'll have better perimeter defense. The "offensive-minded" rap he picked up, I feel is overkill. There was only 1 stretch of games when either Z or Lebron was out and he was basically told "go be the 2nd option, we need you to score" and he responded.
So either he chooses to be a defensive cog on a good playoff team with the league's best player and all its accolades, or he gets traded next year to a sucky team and gets paid while we get the bruiser PF. Whichever is fine with me, but I"ll take the 1st one.