He can dunk and rebound a little and blk a couple of shots. If he just played hard, people wouldn't have a problem. When he gets a rebound outlets the ball and run down the court instead of standing with his hands on his hips, it wouldn't be problem. If he was as old or the beaten down workhorse that a elserly Hakeem was, it would be different. Cato is a 27yr athlete that has been a reserve for every yr he's been in the league. One thing that he should have is a abundance of energy. For this reason is why people point so much anger and frustrations at him. If he played hard all the time, he could avg 11 pts 9 rebs and a couple blocks on sheer effort alone with no skill level like Dale Davis has for 10 yrs or so, but he doesn't and that why he'll ride the pine and Ming will be everything we want.
. While fouling on the most blocks and turning it over by missing a dunk or opportunity to dunk (which is suppose to be a high percentage shot.) I really can not find anything he does really good. It is still hard for me to figure out, if he does some of these things, to be considered even good at. I guess the only thing he does good, is being tall, and I hope that is not hard for him to do also.
He's not even good at being tall. He stands 6'11" but he disappears on the court 99% of the time. He is good at making himself look just good enough to stay in the NBA & somehow he was able to get that fat contract. Dont ask me how!
I understand a lot of Rockets fans are very excited after we draft Ming. We all want to see him start and play right away. We all want to watch how he develop his games and mature under our own eyes. But face it. Cato is to the least a very capable back-uip center in the league. Even if Ming starts the game, he will need a Cato to give him a rest from time to time in games. We also need a Cato (or a few more Catos) to throw his body at Shaq when we play the Lakers. The bottom line is we do need Cato.
How do we know what Cato is capable of, the guards on the team don't pass him the ball in the post. I think if Cato was more involved he would play a lot harder. Cato is far from a professional, and is prone to sulk. I think his moodiness costs him his professionalism. Cato would be a lot better on a team that shared the ball. Just my opinion of course. DaDakota
Cato is an overpaid backup. He's a backup because he doesn't have the heart or intensity to bring it for 35+ minutes. He's overpaid because CD isn't a great GM, a good one, but not great. As for what Cato can do, we know what he's capable of, but one thing is for certain, he can dunk on Texan69128.
the guy is 6'11 and puts up numbers that bad, thats a waste of height, and he can jump pretty well. Those are tools to be a great player, but he has a bad attitude about the game, did you see how out of shape he was at the beggining of the season. Oh yeah he's getting paod to play too, so he better at least try hard...oh wait he doesn't play hard. Thats why people don't like him his contract, and his attitude.
Bad: From what I've seen of Cato in the post I don't want to see any more of. He looks very ackward and ends up putting up a bad shot every time. This is simply because he doesn't put in the time to work on some type of post game. If he had any determination to get better he could have a Kevin Willis post game. He is overpaid for what he brings to a team. Good: On many occasions he has played Shaq pretty well defensively. He seems to get motivated against him and I do remember a couple of blocks on him by Cato. For this reason alone the Rockets should hold on to him even if he cost 6 million per. He also moves excellent without the ball and our guards know how to find him. Cato may be a little overpriced but he is the perfect backup to Ming. We need to keep the big guy.
Some tall players play because they are tall, some tall players play because they want to play. Shawn Bradley and Cato fall into the 1st category. If Cato wouldn't have never hit that growth spurt, he would still be sacking groceries. There have been guys who were short and still hooped because they wanted to hoop, but when they hit that growth spurt, there were then a large player with good basketball skill like Odom,McGrady to name a few. From what i hear, Ming is a big guy that wanted to play basketball and wants to be good at it also. Its a big difference in the 2.
How boring. This is news? Cato is an underachiever. Duh. How is it you work up passion about this today? He did improve over the last season when Steve was in the game. He needs to be involved but he needs help to be involved. He thrived (relative to prior seasons) when Steve was in the game and he was lost when he wasn't. Someone on this board said a while back they thought Cato was depressed. That makes a lot of sense to me. He has potential and that's why we signed him to the contract. When he plays with passion, I don't even think he's overpaid, given the current climate. Is he really that much worse than Todd MacCullough? Doesn't he make about the same money? I think he probably will react badly to the whole Ming thing. I hope he takes it as a challenge, though. He can play well enough to be a very good backup when he tries. And Steve seems to be figuring out when and how to involve him in a way he can handle. If you want him to fail, keep bashing him. He strikes me as self-conscious and I think he's as likely to read the board and listen to the radio as any player. The more his teammates and the crowd believes in him, the better he plays. The more he's bashed, in the press and elsewhere, the worse he plays. I wonder how many of the bashers would even like to see him improve. Seems to me a lot of 'fans' prefer to see players fail. I'm not giving up on him yet. And I really don't think we need to make any other moves. I like this roster and, if we keep Cato, I like our bench.
BOO-HOO! Cry me a freakin' river.....You said it yourself, "after three years here..." After three-freakin' years at $7 mil/year and this is what we got? A big, pudgy, cry-baby who "feels lost when Steve is not out there with him"? Memo to Cato: force yourself into the action! If not on offense, THEN on defense! What does Steve being out there have to do with playing "D", blocking shots, intimidating? NOT a damn thing! It's called having heart, determination, and drive! Non of which Cato has! So please don't give us a lecture about "poor old Cato and how we treat him so bad", we're sick of his excuses! Perform or we'll keep on keepin' on.....
After the all-star break I saw Cato hustle for loose balls, block shots, I really think Eddie and himself are great together and I feel that they can motivate each other on and off the court. When Eddie started playing better, so did Kelvin. Is there a pattern?
This cry me a river stuff is getting pretty damn stale, too. Re-read my post. I said it was clear he was a disappointment. His contract was a mistake. We all know that and it's been posted on this board about 20 million times. Does it make you feel smart to keep repeating it? Like, is this supposed to be some kind of revelation? Like, I read somewhere Kojak might be going bald. Better cancel his TV show. I'm not making excuses for Cato. What I'm saying is he IS under contract, we might as well get all we can out him. What I'm saying is I believe he is clinically depressed and clinically depressed people require a different approach. Steve Francis seems to have figured this out and got more out of Cato last year than anyone has so far. Other than that, I really can't argue with the eternal wisdom of "He sucks! He's fat! He's a cancer!" I repeat, exactly what was it that motivated the originator of these various threads to post this stuff when he did? It is boring, it is old and it's not even really accurate anymore. Last year he tried to do better. I'm hoping he'll do the same next year. You can just keep on yelling "He sucks" since it makes you feel superior to do so. I almost never use this admittedly spurious logic, but the bashers here are begging for it: He can dunk on all of you. You are fatter than he is. Almost any team in the league would gladly pay Cato 7 mil a year rather than pay you $20. That's the state of the league right now. Centers with Cato's stats get 7 mil. You don't even get $20. I guess I understand why you're upset.
