HOUSTON — In a position full of giants, the Houston Rockets’ Chuck Hayes stands out because he stands below them.
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Chuck Hayes and the 7-foot-6 Yao Ming in 2007. With an injured Yao out for the season, Hayes is the Rockets' center.
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Chuck Hayes shooting against the Hornets in a game this month. Hayes is averaging 4.7 points and 6.1 rebounds for the Rockets.
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Hayes defending against the Cavaliers' Shaquille O'Neal. “He's not big, but he's very quick, very strong around the basket,” Rockets Coach Rick Adelman said of Hayes.
In the 63 years of the N.B.A., few teams have had a regular starting center as short as the 6-foot-6 Hayes, and certainly none in recent decades. Hayes is a full foot shorter than Yao Ming, the injured All-Star for whom he is filling in. Dikembe Mutombo, who backed up Yao last season before retiring, is 7-2.
According to N.B.A. rosters, 269 of the league’s 436 players were taller than Hayes at the start of this season. That included 45 players, many of them Hayes’s center counterparts, who are at least 7 feet tall.
Somehow and quite skillfully, Hayes, who has started each of the Rockets’ 38 games this season, performs his duties despite the inherent disadvantages before tip-off. He is one of the better defenders against the league’s best post players — including Orlando’s Dwight Howard and the Lakers’ Andrew Bynum — who are all taller and more athletic than Hayes.
“On paper, it looks like guys that have great length should dominate against Chuck, but they continually struggle against him,” his teammate Shane Battier said. “If you watch him in a game, you’re like, ‘Gosh, this guy is giving away six inches and a foot in wingspan,’ yet nobody is scoring on him.”
Because of injuries to its two highest-paid players — Yao and Tracy McGrady — the workmanlike Rockets have had a dip in height, but have suffered only marginally in the standings. They were 21-17, tied for eighth in the Western Conference, entering Wednesday night’s game against Minnesota.
Hayes, in his fifth season out of Kentucky, is a product of his own grit, but also representative of the league’s evolution. Quick, penetrating guards are benefiting from the league’s ban on defensive hand-checking, and teams have relied more on pick-and-rolls to create defensive mismatches. In response, some organizations have placed an emphasis on unearthing those players who could best defend in that situation.
Among centers, the traditional prototype would be a ceiling-touching player capable of blocking shots and erasing defensive mistakes. Hayes is the next advancement in that lineage. His lateral quickness allows him to guard smaller players during picks and move swiftly enough to defend weakside penetration.
“He’s unique in the pick-and-roll in that he can really slide better than most centers can,” said Sam Hinkie, Houston’s vice president for basketball operations. “He’s not a rim protector in the traditional sense in that he can’t get up and contest shots above the rim, but he can use gifts — mostly his lateral quickness — to get there in time and protect the rim in a different way.”
Hayes folds nicely into the Rockets’ organizational mind-set. General Manager Daryl Morey helped introduce the N.B.A. to quantitative analytics and statistical breakdownsthat go beyond the box score. It is an organization that sometimes plays the game Tag, with the player who is “it” using defensive slides as a means to keep moving.
“He kind of typifies the way we are,” Rockets Coach Rick Adelman said of Hayes. “He’s not big, but he’s very quick, very strong around the basket. He’s one of the best defenders, even though he doesn’t have the size to block shots.”
The Rockets’ bid for a playoff spot might have been damaged with the season-long loss of Yao with a broken foot, but Hayes envisioned his own opportunity, even though forward is his natural position.
“We’d love to have a 7-foot-6 guy who can protect the rim, who can be a force for us defensively, but he’s hurt, so this is our next best option,” Hinkie said. “It just so turns out that it’s a lot better option than people think.”
To prevent taller players from gaining position and scoring easily against him, Hayes tries to meet the man he is guarding high in the post. If a player tries to go in one direction, Hayes tries to edge him the opposite way. From there, it becomes a battle of wills.
“I’m going up against some great athletes, but if you don’t let an athlete be an athlete, he looks really mediocre,” Hayes said. “So, I always try to put a body on him so he doesn’t expose his advantage of his athleticism and wingspan.”
In essence, Hayes, who weighs 238 pounds and was an all-state football player at Modesto Christian High School in California, compensates for his height disadvantage by acting as a human barricade with a strong base.
“His center of gravity’s so low that you’re not moving Chuck once he gets set,” Battier said. “So he finds people early in the shot clock, stops them, and that is really effective.”
On the rare occasion an opposing center gains position near the rim, Hayes attempts to strip him of the ball. When the opponent attempts a shot, Hayes, using a trick he borrowed from Battier, tries to shield his vision with his hand.
“I don’t jump with them,” Hayes said. “I just try to keep them from jumping. If they jump, it’s no contest.”
Hayes went undrafted in 2005 despite four successful seasons at Kentucky. The Rockets then signed him, but he was their final cut in training camp and he headed off for a brief stint in the N.B.A.’s abyss — the development league. As the Rockets prepared to re-sign him, Hayes failed a physical because of an ankle injury. He finally stuck with Houston the third time around when he signed a 10-day contract on Jan. 18, 2006, and is now the organization’s longest-tenured player.
There is little noticeable about him other than the common N.B.A. acts he does not perform. He touches the ball rarely and seldom scores. To date, his most memorable moment as a professional was probably when he stepped in to take a charge that sealed a Game 5 victory in the 2007 playoffs against the Utah Jazz.
He now averages 4.7 points a game and 6.1 rebounds. More important, the Rockets play better defense when Hayes is on the court.
“We don’t put enough premium as scouts, as organizations, on people that do whatever it takes to win, and that’s what he does,” Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He’s got big heart, plays hard, smart basketball-wise. We don’t put a premium on that. We put a premium on guys shooting or jumping. He just wins.”
Even Hayes struggled with describing how he was an outlier in a league dominated by taller, more athletic players. He, like the Rockets, receives little credit for success through tribulations.
“I don’t know how I do it,” Hayes said. “I use my strength. Maybe you should give me a little bit of credit. Maybe I do have a splash of athleticism. Just a little bit, you know?”
