Let's assume that our PF situation doesn't change for next season. So, we still have Juwan, Stromile, and Hayes. Of those three, which one would you prefer sees the most minutes next season? My vote goes to Hayes.
I think Swift should start, and Hayes relieve. Howard should be selling pancakes at the local Ihop. DD
I refuse to participate because it's inconceivable we stand pat at PF. In all seriousness, whoever plays better should be the starter. If Stro is still too sorry to supplant JH, Hayes should at least be the backup.
Based on what you've seen from them (and how you project they might play next season), who would you like give the most minutes to? Of course, whoever plays the best should get the most minutes. The question is: who do you think will be able to make the most of those minutes for the Rockets?
Wow, this has been disgussed non stop since this time last year. The easier question would be he SHOULDN't start. Easy answer ...nobody in our roster. Solution: Trade Juwan Howard or Stro, Luther Head and our 1st pick for Kevin Garnett. There is the anti-juwan crowd many of whom blindly hate him with little to no rational explanation. The best example cited is often that Juwan has always been on losing teams and therefore he is a cancer. That same crowd usually thinks we should start Stro so he can get experience (despite that he's now entering his 6th year). I definately think we need to upgrade Juwan if we can but that the sky isn't falling if we don't do it immediately. The anti-Stro crowd is growing daily, however. I would be in this camp. I don't mind keeping him on the bench until he can prove himself (not just default him minutes if Juwan is playing better that day). His potential is there but you can either do it or you can't. Amare did. Stro didn't. Plus, he is probably the most realistic trade asset ...for what that is worth. Everybody likes Hayes around here ...as the 3rd PF. He's simply not the caliber player we want starting on a contending team. Look at the top teams: Amare/Marion, Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace, Antoine Walker and Dirk. Chuck Hayes can't hold these guys jock straps. Juwan Howard is a BIG step down. Stro theoretically CAN keep up ...but doesn't.
Juwan Howard is one of the worst starting PFs in the game. It goes beyond his history of being on losing teams. His individual numbers are bottom rung. His +/- numbers since he's been with the Rockets have been just about team worst (that tends to happen when you give a guy who doesn't produce a lot and is inefficient a lot of minutes). It isn't blind hate at all. There is substantial evidence that Juwan Howard should not be a starting power forward at this point in his career. What did Juwan prove last season? Why does Juwan start and get a ton of minutes by default? Neither were very good. But one has more upside than the other, at this point in their careers. If Hayes played 30 minutes a game next year, I bet our production from the PF position would be substantially increased. What he lacks in offensive versatility, he makes more than makes up for in offensive rebounding, high efficiency, low turnovers, and far superior defense. It's frustrating for me how underrated Hayes is by Rockets fans, not to mention the Rockets coaching staff. I've made the comparison before to Dennis Rodman. Another high enery, undersized PF with limited offensive skills. And Hayes isn't the mental case that Rodman eventually turned out to be. By virtually every statistical measure, Hayes was far better than the other two PFs -- PER (Hollinger), individual win-loss records and On-Court/Off-Court +/- (82games), Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating (basketball-reference.com). And yet, too many people think he shouldn't be in the regular rotation, when the likes of Howard and Swift are ahead of him.
We don't need all stars at every position, remember Chucky Brown "containing" Charles Barkley? We need guys who fit OUR system and do their jobs on the court, Stro could do that but may never, Juwon is a waste of space at this point and needs to go; however with his contract that is probably near impossible, Chuck Hayes would be a third guy on a good team. That is also why I think a guy like JJ Redick would help this team, he is a good ballplayer who is absolutely money from outside, his deficiencies are there but IMO his positives will outweigh them for this team. Now you put him on a team and ask him to create his own shot and he would have problems but for us he would be perfect.
One of the worst????? Try WORST. By the way. Chuck Hayes plays the best post defense of any of the 3 in addition to being the best rebounder. No, he can't block shots. But Hayes is incredibly crafty. He gets his body in perfect position, he has the lowest center of gravity and the most strength against bigger players that like to lay against the defender, and he has super quick arms and hands that allow him to hit right on the basketball as the offensive player makes their turnaround move to go up for the shot. If somebody teaches him the "pull the chair out" move, he will be even better defensively. He's not a shot blocker and never will be in this league, at least as far as getting up high to get the ball. But he is our best defending PF right now and it isn't even close. He blocks shots before the offensive player gets the ball up in position to shoot it. If you notice Hayes' body, it is truly unique. Most players his size have length in their legs and then a shorter torso. Hayes has short, stubby legs and than a longer torso. That's why his center of gravity is so low and it allows him to box out much physically bigger, longer players. The thing I like about him is other teams view him as such a mismatch on the offensive end and they look to isolate him and post him up because of his lack of height. What they don't realize is they are playing right into his hands because he is so effective against post ups. That's one of the reasons his +/- numbers look so good with Yao. Because teams go away from Yao and try to exploit him and they fail to realize that the reason they aren't executing is because of how good Hayes is defensively on the post up.
Another stat to consider. I rated all PFs according to Hollinger's Game Score formula, applied to their stats for the entire season per 40 minutes played. It's sort of a rough approximation of PER (which is much more complicated to calculuate, and I didn't want to bother). I specifically looked at PFs who played at least 500 minutes, which is generally regarded as a good cutoff for getting reliable per-minute numbers. In all, there was a pool of 67 PFs under consideration. Code: Rank Player Team MP GS/40 1 nowitzki,dirk dal 3087 21.4 2 brand,elton lac 3099 21.1 3 garnett,kevin min 2960 20.9 4 bosh,chris tor 2752 18.2 5 duncan,tim san 2789 17.7 6 gasol,pau mem 3132 17.2 7 boozer,carlos uta 1026 16.8 8 o'neal,jermaine ind 1802 16.3 9 okur,mehmet uta 2943 15.1 10 webber,chris phi 2892 15.0 11 west,david nor 2528 15.0 12 howard,dwight orl 3024 14.5 13 jamison,antawn was 3287 14.2 14 abdur-rahim,sharsac 1956 14.0 15 martin,kenyon den 1548 13.9 16 wallace,rasheed det 2778 13.7 17 wilcox,chris sea 1530 13.5 18 gooden,drew cle 2174 13.4 19 randolph,zach por 2545 13.1 [B]20 hayes,chuck hou 534 13.1[/B] 21 murphy,troy gsw 2512 13.0 22 jefferson,al bos 1061 12.8 23 smith,joe mil 887 12.7 24 diogu,ike gsw 1035 12.7 25 villanueva,charltor 2363 12.6 26 cook,brian lal 1532 12.2 27 okafor,emeka cha 875 12.1 28 thomas,kenny sac 2295 12.0 29 croshere,austin ind 1147 11.9 30 mcdyess,antonio det 1736 11.8 31 ely,melvin cha 1350 11.6 32 lee,david nyk 1128 11.6 33 walker,antoine mia 2200 11.5 34 sweetney,mike chi 1228 11.3 35 songaila,darius chi 1328 11.3 [B]36 swift,stromile hou 1343 11.2[/B] 37 butler,jackie nyk 745 11.1 38 thomas,kurt pho 1411 10.8 39 radmanovic,vladilac 1974 10.8 40 collison,nick sea 1447 10.8 41 haslem,udonis mia 2491 10.7 42 bonner,matt tor 1712 10.4 43 marshall,donyellcle 2073 10.4 44 horry,robert san 1181 10.2 45 thomas,etan was 1090 10.1 46 perkins,kendrickbos 1334 10.1 47 jackson,marc nor 1025 9.9 48 evans,reggie den 1392 9.8 49 padgett,scott njn 721 9.8 [B]50 howard,juwan hou 2538 9.7[/B] 51 hayes,jarvis was 517 9.7 52 brown,p.j. nor 2382 9.6 53 allen,malik chi 700 9.3 54 griffin,eddie min 1359 9.2 55 harrington,othelchi 826 9.2 56 henderson,alan cle 527 9.1 57 williams,aaron nor 789 8.4 58 cabarkapa,zarko gsw 507 8.3 59 barnes,matt phi 633 8.2 60 rose,malik nyk 1126 7.9 61 robinson,cliffornjn 1863 7.7 62 skinner,brian por 946 7.7 63 sow,pape tor 592 7.0 64 taylor,maurice nyk 1209 6.6 65 ruffin,michael was 1012 5.7 66 scalabrine,brianbos 940 4.7 67 madsen,mark min 676 3.6
Hayes isn't a starter, a nice role player, but his offense is putrid for a starter, or for any NBA player. He's too much of a liability on offense to be playing big minutes.
durvasa, I won't repeat how worthless I think the production per 40 min stats are. That's another thread. IMO if Hayes were made the starter and got serious minutes, his effectiveness would fall dramatically like it did for Rybo. Teams will adjust to him as they learn his weaknesses, which will be magnified. It's possible he makes a dramatic improvement over the summer which would negate much of this point. This is to be determined. Based on last year, none of the 3 should be a starter. It will be a very sick joke if either of them start.
Rockets were +2.8 points/100poss on offense with Hayes on the court versus off the court (19.7% minutes played with Yao, 35.4% of minutes played with McGrady) Rockets were -2.7 points/100poss on offense with Swift on the court versus off the court. (37.8% of minutes played with Yao, 41.3% of minutes played with McGrady) Rockets were -7.3 points/100poss on offense with Howard on the court versus off the court. (49% of minutes played with Yao, 47.1% of minutes played with McGrady) Sorry, that argument does not hold. Howard got more time with Yao and McGrady than the other two, and despite that the Rockets scored much worse with him on the court than off the court (if you want to use the word "putrid", please do so with Howard because it certainly applies!). Meanwhile, Hayes played the least minutes with Yao and McGrady, and despite that the Rockets still scored more points per possession with him on the court versus off the court. And that's not even mentioning how much better we were defensively with Hayes on the court -- his defensive +/- was near the top of the league.
It's relevant, so go ahead and argue here. I think that list is a pretty good representation of who the best to worst PFs are in the game, based on last season's regular season. I don't recall you providing a convincing argument last time. Maybe you can do better this time. Maybe teams adjust, how much who knows. But you can't deny him minutes based on such speculation, when his on court productivity far surpassed Swift and Howard. Also, the stats might overstate how good Chuck Hayes is, or will be. However, considering he got those stats as a rookie who joined the team in the middle of the season, and that his stats were so overwhelmingly better than our other two options, I still think the reasonable conclusion is that Hayes is our best PF for next season. Perhaps ... but the question is if those are the three we have to work with, which would be the most deserving to get the most minutes.
Hayes, the dream year in the NBA is over. The clock struck midnight. It's time to go back to the NBADL. Stomile needs to get on the yellow brick road and find the scarecrow. Juwan needs to find the fountain of youth. We need OT or an OT clone.
The implied question is which player's individual play will benefit the Rockets the most next season if they're getting the majority of the minutes. Will the Rockets benefit most from playing Juwan, Swift, or Hayes the most minutes? Answer based on what you've seen from them so far, and how you project they might play next year.
Stro should be starting with Juwan playin 20 minutes a night. When Yao needs a rest and depending on matchups Stro should play center with Juwan/Hayes on the floor.
