Aaron Gray is a bucket of lard, but seems to be a pretty good basketball player. He's averaging just 12 mpg now and only played in half of the games-- so strictly a situational player so far. However, he has had good per-minute/efficiency type numbers in these very limited minutes over the last couple seasons and I generally find his performance pretty decent when he does play. He was in during crunch time last night and did a good job, including sinking clutch FTs. I think he might well contribute to the Hornets beating out the Rockets/Memphis despite losing David West. Last season, I saw him doing a great job playing Dwight Howard. Morey has made fun of Gray on the radio before, but I think the Rockets should try to sign him (he has a cheap player option on his K, so probably will opt out). He's not the answer at the 5, but is more ready to play than Hasheem Thabeet and is a good situational matchup guy when you need a true 7 footer (and a true 330 pounder) for 5 or 10 minutes.
He's always had skill around the basket. Wouldn't mind him as a situational big, I guess. He really has no foot speed or elevation on the defensive end though (or in general). And he was definitely not that fat in college. Yikes.
I don't recall what prompted it, but I think it was an interview after a game vs. the Hornets. Morey said something like "Did you guys see Aaron Gray? Oh my God he's huge!"
I'd rather have seen Thabeet get that 5-10 minutes per game since the Rockets are investing a lot of time and money into him...But it's not looking too good when he could only manage 2 points and 5 rebounds in 34 minutes with RGV last night. It's just one game, but you have to wonder if a 7'3'' guy has serious motivational issues if he can only pull down 5 boards in the D-league. So I wouldn't mind having a situational backup C like Gray if Thabeet continues to show no progress--he shouldn't be entitled to any minutes if he isn't working hard. Fesenko and Haddadi are both expiring this season so they could be other possible options. Utah hardly uses Fes and will probably dump him, and I bet Memphis won't have the money to resign Hadaddi.
