Whoa now... 15+ rebounds a game? Isn't that a bit of a stretch? Hayes has great rebounding instincts, but it's just not right to simply project his current 13 minute per game stats to a 35 minutes per game. 1.) Foul trouble can and will limit his aggressiveness on the boards at times. 2.) Fatigue sets in. 3.) If Hayes starts getting some real minutes, teams will start including him in the scouting reports and generally place more attention on him. Last year, nobody really knew who he was so he came in and surprised people. This year, Hayes will have to work even harder for the boards. I think Hayes can get us some solid rebounding, but I think your predictions are a bit extreme.
Isn't Badiane supposed to be a rebounding and shot blocking fiend? His game is raw, especially on offense, but isn't that the knock on Hayes? At the very least, he is a better athlete, more versatile (back up both 4 & 5) and half a foot taller than Hayes.
there may be plenty of love on these boards for Hayes, but to me he's little more than a stop gap solution. If we can swing Reggie Evans, go for it. He may not be the answer to all our problems but at least he's renowned for consistent hustle and the ability to to get boards. If we can trade away Howard in the process, even better.
POR: Skinner for JHo CHA: Ely S&T for JHo or Wallace for Juwan+Head Moving Wallace allows Morrison to play SF and Head would be a starter at SG. JHo would be valuable insurance since May & Emeka will be out at some point. Ely, their other backup PF & Baxter didn't cut it for them when their starters were out. GSW-ATL:Murphy*+Pietrus for Harrington S&T Hawks can't take on contracts longer than 4yrs, swap for JHo instead. CHIJ Brown for JHo+Rybo MIL:Magloire for JHo+Rybo SEA:Fortson for JHo
Given the Rockets preference not to spend, I think you have to look for help from high potential, inexperienced young players. What about Miami Heat's rookie Earl Barron. Looks like he played at Memphis. Anyone seen him play? He got good reviews in summer league. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2519912 He's got size to be a young Center back up. Now that Mourning resigned, the Heat have Shaq, Mourning and Doleac at the center position. Maybe they will cut Barron.
This is the only reason I keep suggesting Chris Taft -- young, big, athletic, mobile, can play backup C, inexpensive and mired behind a plethora of Golden State PFs. I understand Chuck Hayes is a fan favorite -- and I like his overachieving aggressive style -- but we need to have someone with potential (I'm getting to hate that word) in the wings who can be groomed for a future role.
Glad you like the concept, but Taft missed 46 games last year with back injury and then had back surgery. Don't you feel it's a little risky to take a guy that age who's already got a bad back before seeing if he can play post-surgery?
IIRC, it was minor surgery -- they didn't really have a place on their active roster for him so it was easier to leave him in the tank. Their coaching staff did remark, again IIRC, that they really liked what they saw in him. However, thank goodness I don't have to evaluate players physical conditions. I just look for options on rosters and toss them out for consideration.
I don't know what "IIRC" means. I didn't know that back surgery to fix a herniated disk could be minor. If Taft is fit to play, why didn't he play for the Warriors in the Vegas summer league?
Well Yeah Im considering he is probably a foot taller then the average player in the league. Even so, Yao with his huge second half, with No TMac, Yao finished 7th in league in boards...just above Troy Murphy. Untill his big run, he was under 10 for the year, and for his career. Again...not That Great considering. And while with the Rockets he is a 6 boards a night person. Pretty crappy for a PF getting big minutes. And J Ho hasnt averaged over 8 boards a game in 12 Years man. Not to mention J HO's whopping 13 blocks in two whole years with the Rockets. That is worthless production from your starting PF. This is why he is the worst ranked player on the Rockets according to 82games.com. This is why no team will win with his sorry ass. Worthless. According to NBA.com you missed these point guards ahead of him Baron Davis TJ Ford Steve Nash Joe Johnson Andre Miller And I believe Delonte West plays point for the C's Steve Francis did average more Rebounds per game then Alston and is a lifetime much better rebounder then his horrible finishing with the Knicks. Rafer was the 26th ranked Guard as far as boards go. TMAC is 35th in league in rebounds per game for all forwards. And just scrolling through the list I found around 10 SF's that average higher rebounding numbers then TMAC. Again, hes average for a SF. Who was exaggerating again?
Very legitimate question -- and the same one applies to Luther Head. I'm not sure about the severity of the injury, but a herniated disk is not nearly as career threatening as something like, for example, a ruptured disk. In both situations the respective coach may already know what a player can do and wants to look at other players in hope of finding an undiscovered gem....or they may be trade bait.
*edited* If we're pointing out Howard's lack of blocked shots (13 in 2 years!), compared to Evans and Wilcox: Chris Wilcox only 34 blocks last year for a full season. 21 in 2005. Numbers similar to Juwan Howard 2003 and back...Case against Wilcox is we had something like that in Stromile already and can see him disappointing in the same lazy undedicated way.... Reggie Evans barely gets over 10 blocks a year. No one figures him to get blocks though. Still has reputation as defender. Other than Chuck Hayes being 2 inches shorter and Evans being more rugged, Hayes gives you about the same thing with a few more blocks and steals. And gets almost the same rate of boards...No to Evans, just play Chuck. Block stats are misleading cuz you dont HAVE to block a shot to play D a-la Dennis Rodman. Still an interesting look for comparisons sake..If we're talking replacements over for Howard (which we are) then both of those guys are it. But so is Battier who gives you a lot more than rebounds. So my choice: Drew Gooden (forgot about that guy). Make it work! Battier to the 3, Tmac slides to 2, Gooden at 4. Looks real good. Which is why it wont happen
if you don't think that Yao is a great rebounding center then we'll just have to agree to disagree. next year he has a good chance to be the very best rebounding center as Ben Wallace and Camby are slowly but surely declining. my whole point about the All-Star break is that Yao was still able to average 10.2 RPG despite his worse performance up until that point. he is not likely to regress and i can reasonably expect him to be in the top 5 rebounding leaders next season. he is very rarely going to be outperformed in that department. 6.7 rebounds. if 32 MPG is big minutes then Yao at 34 MPG must be a huge minute player? i will agree that he is the weakest link in the starting lineup and no longer expect him to start at PF with Battier, Hayes and now Novak in the lineup. as far as 82games.com is concerned, sometimes scrubs and cancers will be ranked higher than proven All-Stars and even former MVP's. you draw your own conclusions. i said that Kidd and Paul were the only PG's that averaged more than 5 rebounds per game. actually Kidd is the very best rebounder of all guards, point, off or combo. he is even better than all 2/3 swingmen except for Bonzi Wells and Gerald Wallace. Paul on the other hand only averaged about 1 more rebound per game than Alston. a little bit of hustle or slacking off can easily increase or decrease RPG by one rebound. just look at Nash who increased his rebounding to 4.2 this season despite being a career 2.8 rebounder. Joe Johnson will almost certainly play shooting guard or small forward next season. the other 4 PG's rated higher than Alston are better by only .4 rebounds or less. and why did Stevie do so poorly in New York? do you think that he'll vastly improve next season? again, like Yao, i don't expect Alston to be outperformed too often in the rebounding department. TMac is likely going to be playing SF or SG. not general or tweener forward, power forward or forward/center. you have to compare him to starting SF's or 2/3 swingmen. of those "around 10 SF's", Marion and Jamison are the starting PF's for their team. maybe Marion plays SF next season, but i doubt it. he's too much of a mismatch at PF to play at the 3, but who knows. the only other starting SF's who clearly out rebound TMac are Odom and Kirilenko. the other 6 SF's have very similar or worse career numbers. if being in the top 8 of 30 comparable starters is average then i guess you just have a different usage of the word. again, i don't expect TMac to be outperformed too often in rebounding. the Rockets were not a terrible rebounding team last year. playing Gundy (the true weakest link on the Rockets; and the Rockets will have a very hard but not impossible time winning inspite of him) ball, i don't expect them to average over 45 boards a game, but more often than not, they will average more rebounds than their opponents. they averaged 41.6 RPG last season compared to the league leading Clippers at 43.1 RPG. so they were roughly in the upper third (11th) in total rebounding. in rebounding differential, they were slightly above average (13th), but overall they were very similar to the Spurs, whom no one really considers a terrible rebounding team unlike the Suns, who were almost last in differential, yet able to advance to the WCF. that was last year. this year, Yao hopefully will be healthy and improve even more. the Rockets finally have some size in the backcourt and although Battier is a career 5 RPG player, i have a suspicion that he is the type of player to help box out opposing players to let his teammates get the rebound. i think he actually has good instincts to get the board based on his relatively high offensive rebounding rate.
