New York ? Down on Wall Street, the stock market is acting like the Kansas City Royals one step forward for every two steps back.

Yet not that many blocks away from the emerging bears and the tentative bulls, the NBA draft was conducted on Wednesday night amid a mood of euphoric gaiety. Young men were making money hand over fist about every five minutes.

One, of course, was Kansas University product Drew Gooden a tall, athletic, fast and enthusiastic player who also happens to possess an accurate shot, which is by no means a gimme in basketball. The ability to shoot is like the ability to hit a baseball: If you can’t do it, you can’t do it; and if you can do it, you can only improve on it slightly by work, work, work.

During the NBA draft, nobody talked about the hard work in the NBA, about the practices and games, the seemingly interminable travel. If these guys thought they were on the road a lot in college, just wait. NBA lottery picks are one thing, winning the lottery is another. You have to work for your NBA money. You don’t work for lottery loot.

Gooden would never say, but I had the feeling he was disappointed he wasn’t selected by the Golden State Warriors. It’s only natural to want to play in your hometown and, if Oakland isn’t exactly Gooden’s home, it’s only two suburbs up the road on the west side of San Francisco Bay. Gooden’s father, Andrew Sr., sounded miffed that Golden State management was fawning all over Dunleavy before the draft and treating Drew “like an afterthought.”

To tell the truth, I don’t know why the Warriors selected Dunleavy over Gooden. I know that as I sat in press row at the Theater at Madison Square Garden before NBA commissioner David Stern emerged to announce the Warriors’ pick, I was thinking that maybe the Warriors would surprise everyone and go for Gooden because, after all, he’s a local product and he’s a better player than Dunleavy. But no. Stern called Dunleavy’s name.

Sure, Dunleavy can play, but I still think Gooden has more potential. Gooden is a better shooter 50.4 percent last season to Dunleavy’s 48.3. Gooden is a better free throw shooter 75.5 percent to Dunleavy’s 68.1. He’s a better scorer, a better rebounder. They say Dunleavy is a great passer, but would you believe Gooden and Dunleavy both averaged about two assists per game last season?

In what area is Dunleavy better than Gooden? Frankly, I don’t know. Heck, Gooden is even a more emotional player than Dunleavy, who seems to smile about as often as Charles Barkley shuts his mouth.

Was it the Duke mystique? Perhaps. Still, Duke’s Carlos Boozer, a Dunleavy teammate, wasn’t selected until the second round, a fate tantamount to a spot on an NBDL roster. Did Golden State take Dunleavy to spite new Memphis GM Jerry West? Early on, word was that West wanted Dunleavy badly. But that talk died quickly when it became apparent Golden State would go for the son of journeyman NBA coach Mike Dunleavy. Did the fact Dunleavy was an NBA coach’s son have anything to do with it? Who knows?

Whatever, Gooden is headed to Memphis where he is destined to play alongside another famed Dookie, Shane Battier. Gooden is also destined to play for a losing team because the Grizzlies, just two years removed from Vancouver, need more than Gooden to become a contender in 2002-2003. That is, unless Gooden becomes a superstar right away which is unlikely.

However, he will have a shot a making rookie of the year unless Jay Williams, still another Dookie, tears it up for the Chicago Bulls. What about Yao Ming, the 7-foot-5 Chinese Paul Bunyan? He looks like a project to me.

If you paid close attention to the draft, you noted only three Big 12 Conference players were chosen Gooden and Missouri’s Kareem Rush in the first round, and Texas forward Chris Owens in the second round. Owens, who spent more than half of last season sidelined with a knee injury, was a surprise. Even more of a shock was Memphis dealing for him after he was tapped by Milwaukee.

Owens and Gooden are basically the same player. Both are power forwards. Owens is stronger, but Gooden is more refined offensively. Earlier in the second round, Memphis had also taken 6-11 Robert Archibald of Illinois who must have been projected as a guy to come off the bench and rough up opponents’ big men. Kansas played against Archibald twice, both times in the NCAA Sweet 16 and, if we learned anything about Archibald, it’s that he wouldn’t back down to King Kong.

Hard telling, but the most disappointed Big 12 Conference non-draftee must have been Oklahoma’s Aaron McGhee. OU’s bread-and-butter big man had been projected as a second-rounder, but nobody nabbed him. Guess McGhee’s game has too many holes.

Then again, how do you figure Utah taking Notre Dame’s Ryan Humphrey with the 19th pick? When Humphrey abruptly left Oklahoma for Notre Dame, he was more or less replaced by McGhee, a junior college transfer. Humphrey may be more athletic than McGhee, but at least McGhee has a shot. Humphrey can’t score.

Other Big 12 players listed in the NBA draft guide who weren’t chosen were Fredrick Jonzen and Maurice Baker of Oklahoma State, Andy Ellis of Texas Tech, Clarence Gilbert of Missouri and KU’s Jeff Boschee. Some so-called draft experts thought Baker and Ellis had a shot in the second round, but Boschee, Gilbert and Jonzen were dark horses at best.

Pretty soon they’ll begin speculating about the 2003 draft. In fact, some pundits already have high schooler Lebron James as the No. 1 selection.

Right now KU seniors-to-be Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison are projected as first-rounders, Hinrich slightly above the middle and Collison in the lower third. But that could change because June of 2003 is a long way from now and, for all we know, there is an eight-foot giant with soft hands and nimble feet playing for the Mozambique Mud Sharks.