Undersized, yes. Unskilled? You are absolutely wrong on that point. I would seriously doubt if he would get more than a 2 year offer on the open market after this season. Obviously, you don't seem to understand my reasoning. I am not thinking about this offseason. I'm thinking about long term. You sign him to a minimal type 2 year contract and you are just asking to have to pay him MLE or at least a good portion of the MLE in two years. And by that time, the MLE will likely be around $6-$7 million per. Chuck Hayes is not Moochie Norris or that other white kid PG we signed to extended contracts. Chuckie wants to ball. It's all he wants to do. Put him on a short contract and watch him improve. Then some team or teams will be chasing him if for nothing else than to drive our cost up. The only risk to giving Hayes a long term contract is injury. And any GM in the Association will tell you, there is no way to do away with risk injury besides not to have any players. I'd rather pay him $18 mill over 5 years, then to pay him $4 mill for two years, then be stuck with 7 years and $34 million+ contract. Can't you see the value here? Lil Chuckie isn't going anywhere. He is a player in this league. And barring career ending injury, he's still going to get better. Look at the salaries of established power forwards that play defense and give you double digit points and boards, because Chuck is going to be there in another year.
I completely disagree with you. Guaranteeing Chuck $18MM this summer is crazy, IMO. We just don't know how much better he's going to get. We DO know his physical limitations are significant, which means he will always be a very limited role player. I'm not saying he will definitely end up like Moochie Norris or Matt Maloney, but that isn't a risk the team should take. A maximum of two years guaranteed with a team option thereafter.
Dude has got some of the best hussle of anyone on our team. He's starting to make teams pay for doubling Yao. Recently I've seen him actually create his own shot - actually driving and spinning to the hole. And (finally) he's hitting his freethrows. He's also learned from Shane on how to get position to draw the offensive foul. Still a foul magnet - I swear there are times when he's on the bench and he still gets fouls called against him!! But he's getting better.
Haslem signed a 5-year extension for 33 mil in 2005, after playing only 2 years. Chuck Hayes will have finished his 2nd year. Playing the undersized PF roleplayer to the superstar center and entering your 3rd year. That sounds like Haslem. Haslem is better than Hayes. Hayes is at least half as good as Haslem. He'll get at least half of what Haslem makes, 16.5 mil. I think Hayes could perform similar to Hayes throughout his career.
Yep, there's quite a good chance that Hayes could perform very similarly to Hayes throughout his career.
In fact, I'd guarantee it! On a serious note, we shouldn't sign Chuck to a contract longer than three years. God knows how much more he can improve and three years is a long time already. If you're signing a guy to a big contract just because he might get a bigger one three years down the line, then you're going to put the team in cap hell eventually. That's thinking like Isiah Thomas. I can't think of one team that regrets signing their players for too small a contract years ago. Think about our team. Have we ever signed a guy for too short a contract? Has any team signed a guy for too short a contract? Nope! It will NEVER bite you in the ass.
All I know is he is the best post defender and one of the strongest players on this team. Larry Bird was very physically limited. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing. Bobby Jones was very physically limited. And Stromile Swift is physically gifted. I'll take Bobby Jones and Chuckie Hayes every day of the week over Swift and twice on Sunday. What people do not understand and cannot comprehend is how to quantify Chuck's value. His value is not about his height or standing reach or how many points a game he averages. He's another glue guy like Shane. They look at a guy that is 6'6" and think he cannot possible defend against taller power forwards who can post up. What they don't realize is how much he does defend those guys, how many times he forces them to have to catch the ball an extra foot or two outside their ideal range, how fast his hands are when the opponent tries to turn and shoot or face up on him. What they don't understand is how perfectly he plays pick and roll defense, how high he forces the ball handler out and how quickly he gets back down in the post. What they don't understand is how many times he gets a hand right in the shooters face, cutting off their vision of the rim as they are shooting the jump shot. What they don't understand is how quick he is laterally and how good he can guard a perimeter player while at the same time how strong he is and how quickly he can then drop into the post, and then how strong he is against a post up player. What they don't understand is all those plays where a taller big shoots over him are plays where he is coming back from helping off someone else's man and any other power forward would never make it back in the play. What they don't understand is how many times he forces the opponent to take a fadeaway jumper instead of dunking because they can't up fake him out of his shoes and go around him for the dunk. What they don't understand is Hayes has proven that the team is consistently better when he is on the court paired with any other teammate than Juwan Howard paired with any other teammate, even with Mutombo. They will say, "Oh, it's because he plays with 111 and the starters". But what they don't realize is last year when this team was in the crapper, Hayes still had the best +/- numbers when paired with any other player on the team. Look it up. It's not even close. http://www.82games.com/0506/0506HOUP.HTM If you watched Hayes the other night against Elton Brand, you should have been able to see this. Brand is without a doubt one of the strongest power forwards in the league along with being one of the top 10 athletes at his position, along with having a top 10 skillset at his position. Brand literally killed Juwan and Yao defensively. He was firing up that jumper when they wouldn't come out and when they did come out, he just walked right past them to the rim. He couldn't do that with Hayes. Hayes was making it difficult for him to even catch the ball. Go review what power forwards are getting paid in this league and objectively how much the contribute to winning versus Chuck Hayes. You can pull whatever stats you want to, but it don't mean anything if it doesn't contribute to wins. You can have all the Tim Thomases, Drew Goodens, Sean Mays, Shareef Abdur-Rahims, Antoine Walkers, Stromile Swifts, Hakeem Warricks, Jason Collinses, Kenny Thomases, Juwan Howards, even the Zach Randolphs and I will take Chuck Hayes over them every time on any team, not just our team. Because Chuck Hayes contributes to winning. He will make any team in the league more competitive. And you know all those guys I named right there are making some pretty significant dough. $18 million over 5 years is right around $3.65 million or so per year for the next five seasons. Just look at some of the contracts these other power forwards I listed are making. And if they were all playing for free, if we had to pick'em out of a playground lineup, I'd still take Hayes over all of them. I will take any 4 players you want to put together with Hayes and they will outproduce the same 4 players with any of the above players consistently. Just wait and see what his numbers look like next year when he cuts down on the fouls and adds a little bit more muscle. Just wait and see.
While I agree with most of your points, I believe a lineup of Ryan Bowen, Vspan, Ira Newble, Motumbo, and Hayes would be significantly weaker than the first four and Zach Randolph.
Larry Bird wasn't physically overmatched nearly every night the same way Chuck is. That is a very poor comparison. Bird also was an incredibly skilled offensive player (both shooting and passing), plus he had a basketball IQ off the charts. I see what Chuck does for the team, at his best and at his worst. What we cannot say for sure is what the future holds. If he pans out the way you predict then he's worth $18MM. But we know as Rockets fans things don't always turn out for the best after signing contracts. Right now, Chuck is on a good roll and hopefully he keeps it up for a long while.
You're wrong again. The first 4 would simply cancel each other out and it would come down to them getting the ball to Zach being defended by Chuck or getting the ball to Hayes defended by Zach. Hayes' unit would win because Hayes has the desire to win. Zach would fire up a couple fade away jumpers, get the ball stolen two or three times because he wouldn't fight for position and then it would be over. Not to mention Hayes is going to come out and set the screen for the pick and roll with VSpan and follow Vspan to the rim for any putback possibilities while Zach will stand around demanding the ball. Zach is going to try to post up Hayes with his big derrier from 17 feet away. VSpan is going to have to wind up throwing some illadvised pass to Zach with Hayes coming around the side and using the pull out the chair defense as soon as Zach gets set and VSpan throws the pass. Or else VSpan is going to have to take that high percentage jump shot because his defender, VSpan, is cutting off the penetration and Zach makes too much money to set a pick. See that?
The great thing about Hayes is that his bad games (which are rare) don't really hurt us, but his good games really help us.
jopatmc, name one time where a team signed a guy for too short of a contract and it burned them later on. One time. That's all I'm asking. It never happens. You could say dallas signed diop for too short a contract (3yr, 7mil), but is that really too short? They could sign him again easily without hurting their long-term outlook. And we could do the same with Chuck. What exactly are you worried about? We get Chuck on the cheap for two or three years and then we have to pay him *gasp* fair value? Yeah, moves like that kill teams in the long-term. You know what would be worse? Signing him to a five-year deal and he turns out to be the next Eduardo Najera. Why don't you look into your crystal ball and tell us how much and how long we really should have signed vspan for?
Anyone notice how JVG is very measured with his comments on Chuck? He'll gush about Juwan, but even when Chuck has a very good game like he did against Toronto all the coach will say is, "Yeah, Chuck did a good job." I'd think Chuck would be a JVG-type player, but he doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of him.
Hayes is an excellent basketball player and I dont mind him as our starter for now and the future. I started a thread here a couple of weeks ago asking who would benefit the most from Yao's return, and it seems pretty clear now that Hayes has been the biggest beneficiary. His play will get even better when Yao gets back to 100 percent. If this guy ever added a jump shot to his game, he would be a huge asset to our team.
Najera is making over $4.5 million and has a player option to exercise for next season at $4.9 million. If he opts out, he can probably get at least a 3 year $10 million deal this summer. Come on man. Defensively, there is no comparison between Najera and Hayes and they are the same offensive player. I actually think Hayes is a better offensive player. And I am convinced Hayes is a better rebounder. I am worried about Chuck hitting 10-12 points 10 rebounds per game next year on an efficient 55-60% field goal percentage and the rest of the league finally figuring out everything that he brings to the table to contribute to winning. There is no use naming every team that has signed a player to too short a contract. There are as many of those as there are teams that sign players for too long a contract. All I will say is just wait and see. Time will prove who is right.
No, I'd like you to name one. Because nine times out of ten, players just re-sign with their team anyway because they have the money. We'll most likely keep Chuck no matter what. We don't need to overpay him now just because some team might like him three years down the line. Teams never get burned like this. You're gambling that he'll get better, so much better that we should pay him now what no team in their right mind would offer him. I'm saying we pay him what he's worth. Which method seems like a better way to sign players to you? So yeah, name one team that signed a guy for too small a contract and regretted it. If there are so many, it should be easy.
He's only in his second season, durvasa. JVG has never made a habit, to my knowledge, of going out of his way to play and praise 1st and 2nd year players, unless they are picks who clearly are going to be stars very soon and/or injuries force his hand. Hayes will keep improving season by season, until he reaches his limit. Now, his limit may be limited, LOL, but he certainly isn't there yet. Only in his second year, and if he can develop that 15 foot jumper we all want him to have, and become nails with his layups, he's certainly worth what we're paying Billy for sitting on the end of the bench. Some might say more. I would say more.
There are few 5s in the current NBA who are scoring machine. As a result, most team use their PF's to get their offense going to provide the inside present. Chuck Hayes will only start in a team with good 5, who can score. Then he'll be efficient for his rebound and hustle.
