CHRON -- "The positive with Yao out is hopefully it will clarify our backup five (center) position more because I'm really, really unsure right now of where we're going to go with that," Read More...
Possible backups on the roster right now are Mutombo, Howard, Hayes, and Haryasz. Haryasz will almost certainly on be a rotation player, and Mutombo's minutes will probably be limited to special situations. That boils it down to Howard and Hayes. Van Gundy has spelled out the requirements for his backup center: <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">"I would say, if you're big and you're not a range shooter, you're going to have to be a rebounder, screener, defender. You want to have enough on the floor so you can have a balance between offense, defense, rebounding and you can play well. The problem with Yao being out, none of our traditional centers are guys we are going to throw the ball to in the post. It makes the game a little bit harder."</div> Those three qualities happen to be the strength of Chuck Hayes. He's probably the team's best rebounder (outside of maybe Mutombo and Yao), Van Gundy has called him the team's best post defender, and has said he is a very good screener last season. Van Gundy is very much biased towards playing the veteran players, so I'm not going to say Chuck is going to jump ahead of Juwan in the rotation just yet. But based on those criteria, he certainly should.
If Van Gundy uses Hayes at center, the Rockets will have suffered a great setback. That's prolly the worst thing you could do from strategic standpoint.
Mutumbo, he has impressed me quite a bit considering what he can still put forth at his age. I know he probably can't play heavy minutes for a long time, but he is a solid backup.
