Yao has good skills, Cato has poor skills. Yao is taller. Yao is smarter. Cato cannot play PF. Cato has nowhere near the skill set required of a suitable PF. Cato is a good back-up C. Let's keep it that way.
I look at it this way, is Cato a better C than Mo or EG is a PF? Many times, in many situations, I say yes. Cato doesn't have the skills for the PF, but Yao does has the skills to play it, offensively at least. I think when Mo and EG are both struggling sometimes it would be worth it to play Cato at C and Yao at the PF.
you're right. if moT and EG play poorly, why not bring in cato to play PF in the 4th quarter? cato can't possibly play worse. plus, he guarantees not going to hurt the team by forcing shots. you'll never see cato shoots a three point shot.
I like the idea of getting Cato and Yao in at the same time. Do we really have to say "Yao will be the 5, Cato the 4?" Why? I mean, besides for defensive assignments.. Why not have Cato muscle the opposing center on defense, and grab rebounds, while allowing Yao to set up shop in the high post, where it seems he's more comfortable anyway? Of course, this isn't a long-term solution, but it might help in the short term, since Yao is still getting used to the physicality of playing in the low post in the NBA. So until Yao gets stronger, we could have Cato as a Ben Wallace type, defend the opposing C, get some boards, and dunk once in a while, and have Yao setting up shop further out, shooting over smaller F's, and maybe even distributing the ball once in a while. so does that make Yao the 4, and Cato the 5? Maybe call them both 4.5's. Forget it, I've confused myself.
I think I basically just posted a more rambling version of this.. so essentially, I agree. The only potential problem would be that they'd both be on the floor picking up fouls at the same time, so we could run into a position where they'd both be in foul trouble, and then we could be left with Collier at center at a pivotal moment in a big game.
