Hayes should be the poster child for the upside of staying in school for four years. I think that his work ethic, basketball IQ and unselfishness are all products of working under Tubby Smith at Kentucky for 4 years, not from spending 8 weeks in the NBDL. His toughness and poise under pressure are the result of playing for the winningest program in D-IA basketball history and wearing a target on his back in every game that he played while he was in Lexington.
The guy is too short to be a power forward but if you can get double digit rebounding out of the small forward ala Shawn Marion that would be a big plus for us. Even if we just sign him for the rest of the season, I'll be happy to know that Bowen can be moved back to playing match ups and garbage time.
I guess I'm not watching the same game you guys are. Chuck Hayes is OKAY at best but still has problems. Remember Detroit when he couldn't inbound the ball in 5 seconds? The missed free throws right before that? That's at LEAST a 4 point swing in a CLOSE game against a fierce opponent. I'm not sold on this Chuck Hayes fellow.
Obviously you aren't, because you haven't seen his high basketball IQ, the way he always manages to be exactly where the ball is, fights for rebounds, even forced a hook shot into a jump ball (which we won). This guy is a rookie, he's only played five games in the NBA, and he's already close to averaging double figures in rebounds (10.3 during this road trip). How many rookies are *that* good, even big men? Between him and Baxter, they clogged up the lane so tightly that the Bucks went for 9 1/2 minutes in the fourth quarter without scoring a single point, and chuck hayes would almost always be the first to the rebound. You better be sold. Stro is going to have to fight this guy for minutes, and rightly so.
He has only played 4 games. He just started playing in the NBA. His tenacity and hustle was missing from this team. For what he has done to help this depleted team, I give him props.
The point is that you don't sign anybody for longterm after seeing them play a couple of games. Especially an undrafted rookie like Hayes.
