I would have said yes, if I felt that Chuck was defending at last year's level. He is still undoubtedly better than Luis and Landry defensively and I'm all for increasing his minutes and also for Deke's, but I'm not sure if he should start.
Should he start? The man can barely crack the rotation as is and probably doesn't belong on any decent team's starting 5.
Not a good idea unless someone else is also replaced. Hayes has lost a step from last year. With Tmac, Battier Alston all shooting badly, it's not a good idea to put 4 under 40% FG starters on the court. Just not enough offense.
Yea I'd like to see that lineup... Yao Hayes- good defense, but with him, Battier, and Rafer starting, its like playing 2 err... 1 1/2 on 5. Battier- We're on offense now Battier, that means time out for you, go to your corner Mac-shell of what he once was Rafer- brick city
He's back again!! I'm still waiting for your response in the first thread dedicated to this very same topic. I guess one thread wasn't good enough.
Uhh... we've had this situation before, with Hayes starting next to Yao. Yao gets crowded in the paint, defenses ignore Hayes, and disaster ensues. Plus Scola has been money from the mid range. As awkward as he looks he's still shooting 53%. Terrible thread.
I will reply to this and the 5 or 6 other people who posted this same useless drivel. I have already addressed this. Watch a game for once in your life. None of you obviously know anything about the game. Yao gets double teamed regardless. Luis Scola does nothing to prevent it. I have already posted the fact that if Scola helped Yao see less double teams, then his Assists and Points Per Game would have gone up. Yao's numbers have gone down since Scola entered the starting lineup. On the flip side, if other teams were really not defending Chuck Hayes, then Chuck would be averaging double figures. Scola's only claim to fame is the 22 game winning streak, but 10 of those games came with defensive minded Mutombo in the starting lineup, not Yao. And The Rockets have yet to rekindle that magic. And Scola got torched by Okur in the playoffs a year after Chuck Hayes shut him down completely.
And yet Scola and Landry are allowed to let games get out of hand before he makes a change. He gives Scola such a long leash, he isn't afraid to miss a shot and worse, he never plays defense because Rick Adelman gives him no reason to.
Our defensive problems are in the 4TH Quarter when we loose our lead's. This thread should be: "Should Chuck Hayes finish games"
That is a load of crap. Last year's stats, by removing Hayes and replacing him with Scola the team was a +47 compared to a +35. The winning percentage jumped by almost 10%! Yes teams still double off Scola to Yao, and no Yao doesn't get the assist. Someone else gets the assist because they pass to a wide open Scola instead of a double teamed Yao. The affect of having a guy next to Yao that can actually play offense is that the team's offensive production increases and not Yao's individual stats. The team use to struggle to get to 85 points with Hayes in the line-up. Now they are in the 90's. The reason Hayes didn't average double figures isn't because he was defended. It is because he couldn't do anything with the ball when he got it. Chuck further then 5 feet from the basket is useless. They would force feed Hayes the ball and he would miss lay-ups. Yes, the team gives up more points with Scola on the floor, but that is partially because they play a faster pace game and the point differential favors Scola by a long shot.
Why do you think Chuck's offense has dropped so much with Adelman this year, and even last year to a lesser degree? Is it mental? Is McGrady not drawing the same attention? Is he just blowing more open looks than he used to? Does he just not fit the new offense well? Chuck was always limited, but he used to be an efficient offensive player.
It's because Rick Adelman doesn't play a Pick & Roll offense like Van Gundy did. Chuck was notorious for setting a hard pick for McGrady and then rolling hard to the basket. This helped McGrady because if they doubled him, Chuck got an easy 2 and if they didn't, McGrady got a 1-on-1 situation. I think Chuck averaged like 55% or better. Now, the majority of his shots are contested. Adelman went away from that because Adelman is nothing more than a system coach. He refuses to adapt to the talent he has. That is why McGrady struggles and why Yao's points are down. A similar thing happened in Detroit. You had Larry Brown who was all about defense and they got rid of him for Offensive minded Flip Saunders. It seemed to work well in the first year, they won a lot of games, then the next year they imploded. We are seeing the same thing with The Rockets.
You made some decent points until the end. The Rockets with Adelman have NEVER played a faster paced game, with or without Luis Scola and his horrible, horrible, defense.
If I'm not mistaken I could have sworn everyone was calling for Hayes to be bench so Scola can start. Scola started and that turned out to be great for us. Now all of a sudden the Rockets are going through a tough time and they want Chuck "I miss wide open layups" Hayes to start again. lol jeez
Chuck has always had some issues offensively, but nothing like he's had since Adelman was named head coach. Lack of confidence would be my guess. My theory (and it's merely a theory) is that they were trying to train him to be more like Carl offensively... and he's just not. Something that Ron said in training camp stuck out at me when he said it, and this is paraphrased, you will see Chuck shooting jumpers. Which told me he and Carl were practicing the same shots. That's fine and dandy, but it's also not where he was going to get shots in the game. Extra time working on your shot is fine, but since they had no intention of playing him with Yao he should have been all about the inside and driving from the top of the post. I think it's also a bit of who he's playing on the court with. This season he's been playing with Carl, Brent, Ron, and Aaron for the majority of his minutes (he's had some pt with rafer and shane as well but not as many as those above)... out of that group, exactly who is going to be able to or want to make a pass to him? Something I have noticed too is when he flashes open in the paint they don't pass to him either. Which is fine since he's struggling, but it doesn't do his confidence any good either. More often than not, he's setting a screen for the shooter or passing it out of the post to someone cutting or passing off at the top. Wow.. that was wordy. The short version of my answer. Basically, his confidence is shot, his teammates confidence in him offensively is shot, and it all stems from lack of confidence from his coach. But honestly, our whole team is blowing a ton of layups. I feel like all of them need to try to shoot layups and bunnies around deke and his elbows for a full week so they stop missing them in close.
I prefer my starters to stay out of foul trouble and not rack up 4 fouls in a quarter, so I voted no. Every time Hayes goes in I just know the other team is going to the free throw line almost every possession.
