The Houston Rockets have been in the news the past couple of days for one signing, and another one that seems imminent. Their roster now stands at 14 players, meaning they have room for one more guy. There is reportedly mutual interest between Chuck Hayes and the Rockets, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports.
Hayes played with the Rockets from 2005 until 2011. His agent, Calvin Andrew, says the two sides have mutual interest in a deal. Hayes was spotted with the Rockets coaching staff on Tuesday, which is what brought about the rumors of his possible return to Houston.
It is reportedly a long-shot that Hayes gets a deal done with the Rockets because of the lack of roster spots, but it clearly isn't out of the realm of possibility. The Jason Terry deal still has yet to be finalized, and once it does the Rockets won't have room for Hayes unless they maneuver their roster a little bit.
Hayes will be entering his 11th season in the NBA at age 32 and the fact that his career has lasted that long is a testament to him. He is an undersized center/power forward. Standing at 6'6," Hayes uses his girth to grab rebounds and play defense,and he does both things very well.
Hayes has never been a great NBA player by any means and has actually only started about a third of the games he's ever played in, but he does provide toughness and solid rebounding. Last season with the Toronto Raptors, Hayes only played in 29 games and averaged 8.8 minutes per game. Because of his lack of minutes, it is hard to look at Hayes' per-game numbers and see how good of a rebounder he is. However, per 36 minutes his career average is 9.9 rebounds,a tremendous for a small guy like him.
At this point in his career Hayes is at best a fringe NBA player, but if he does get a contract with the Rockets he will be a guy they can bring in sparingly. As a bonus, Hayes is a career 62 percent free throw shooter, which isn't great but it has been well chronicled how bad the Rockets big men are from the charity stripe.
