Ugh. Absolutely love Chuckwagon. One of my favorite players. But I don't want to pay him more than half the MLE.
I'd be very surprised if there wasn't more than a few teams bidding for his services. Dallas Chicago Miami OKC Any contender can use someone like him.
No he isn't, this team was going to struggle when they met tougher competition regardless of Chuck being in the lineup or not. Everyone want to make Chuck into this hero, "that if he were in the line up we would have one the games we lost". But truth be told we would have lost this games, regardless of Chuck being in the line up.
I think the days of Chuck beeing the best kept secret are gone. I do not think he is going to get the MLE, but he will certainly get paid after this season. We gave 5M to Brad Miller, Hayes is worth at least that.
The games vs Utah and Portland were close until the opposing PF started to shoot over our guys and back them in with little resistance. Chuck has had great success against Lamarcus Aldrige and would have slowed him down. He would have made it difficult for Al Jefferson to score moreso than what Bra Miller or Luis Scola could have done.
I don't think we would have had a problem if Adelman had gone with Patterson and Hill over Scola and Miller. Hill is a very good post defender, but is unaware of he other players around him. Patterson is a very good team defender, but isn't as good at guarding the post. They compliment each other defensively. Miller and Scola are bad all the way around.
Opponents scouting reports' still say that he has no offense. In this league, if you don't even have a fraction worth of offensive skill; you're not going to get paid. Even the best defenders in the game had one thing going for them. (Chuck has improved vastly, but I doubt other teams in the league label him as an offensive threat. We can keep him cheap.)
If Chuck Hayes gets offered MLE type money on a contender, I don't see us resining him for that much. Personally I wouldn't be comfortable paying a 28 yr old, 6'6 PF/C, that much money. With his recent play, contenders like Chicago and Boston, will probably willing to pay him that much, to toughen up their front line.