He wasn’t supposed to make the NBA. After playing a decade, UK great still on payroll.
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We Meet Again
The Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are publishing a series of stories catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes. Click here to read all of the installments published previously.
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Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series in which the Herald-Leader is catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes.
You want to know how different Kentucky basketball was at the start of this century?
Chuck Hayes — a 6-foot-6 forward out of Modesto, Calif. — committed to UK ahead of the 2001-02 season under the assumption that Tayshaun Prince, then a junior, and Keith Bogans, then a sophomore, would both declare for the NBA Draft, leaving him ample playing time. Prince was a consensus second team All-American and Bogans was SEC Tournament MVP.
Both went on to have lengthy pro careers but they returned to school for the following season, a choice that in the one-and-done era might be met more with skepticism than celebration if made by a player with similar accolades. Even then, it caught Hayes off guard.
“It was challenging in the beginning,” Hayes said in an April phone interview with the Herald-Leader. “I just kept working, man, and it almost came to the point where practices were my games. I would just try to dominate.”
Hayes held his own and averaged the seventh-most minutes on the team as a freshman. By contrast, freshman guard Tyrese Maxey, who’s NBA-bound, led UK in minutes played last season.
Hayes made his first college start against Florida during February of that season.
“I remember that day ‘cause I wanted to do everything in my power to keep him from ever putting me back on that bench,” Hayes said of then-head coach Tubby Smith with a laugh. “I was not going back to the bench, man.”
He made a convincing case as he finished with 11 points, nine rebounds and a blocked shot. By his sophomore season, Hayes was in the top three in minutes played, and he led the Wildcats in that category as a junior and senior. He led UK in rebounding his final three seasons and became a fan favorite for his defensive tenacity. Hayes finished his career among the school’s top 10 for rebounding and steals — the only player in UK history with that distinction — and ranks No. 20 overall in career assists.
Despite pre-draft evaluations littered with back-handed compliments — “If he brings the effort and intangibles he brought to UK, he could end up having a pro career,” a Draft Express writer opined in 2005. “There is a pretty good chance, however, that his pro career is in Turkey or Sweden, etc.” — Hayes held his own in the NBA, too. He went undrafted but, after an impressive stint in the NBA Developmental League, Hayes signed a 10-day contract with the Houston Rockets in January 2006.
It was the start, it turns out, of two careers.
Second life
Hayes played nearly 10 years in the NBA and was at the forefront of the league’s “small-ball” movement. By the middle of his career he was the backup to Rockets center Yao Ming, who stood a full foot taller. The undrafted Hayes often had to start in place of the oft-injured former No. 1 pick and never backed down when defending the likes of giants like Dwight Howard and Shaquille O’Neal.
“He’s got big heart, plays hard, smart basketball-wise,” Mike D’Antoni, then head coach of the New York Knicks, said of Hayes in a 2010 New York Times profile. “We don’t put a premium on that. We put a premium on guys shooting or jumping. He just wins.”
Hayes’ Kentucky teams went 109-25 over his four seasons, with two NCAA Tournament Elite Eight appearances, three Southeastern Conference regular-season titles and two league tourney championships.
The ex-Cat hung up his sneakers in January 2016 after getting cut by the Los Angeles Clippers and Rockets earlier in the 2015-16 season. He soon after started an AAU program in California and focused on that until a call came from former Rockets teammate Jared Jeffries in August 2016, gauging his interest in a player development job with the Denver Nuggets. Hayes interviewed and was back in the league in time for the 2016-17 season.
“I’m thankful for my good friend Jared Jeffries and Tim Connelly, the president of the Nuggets, for letting me start my second career,” Hayes said.
In addition to player development, Hayes got to do some scouting for Denver. He sat in the Nuggets’ draft war room in 2017, an experience that shook him — in a good way.
“I just got sprung, man,” Hayes said. “I got sprung with the intensity of the room, the uncertainty. I got the bug and that’s when I realized I knew what I wanted to do.”
Hayes now is in his third season as a scout for Houston, the organization he called home for most of his professional playing days. Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, one of the first in the league to embrace an analytics-minded approach to talent evaluation, also has a reputation for wheeling and dealing.
It’s a fun work environment, to say the least.
“You can only imagine the rush I get working with this staff,” Hayes said. “… With Daryl, man, you’ve gotta be on your toes.”
Cross-country trips have been a staple of Hayes’ adult life, except now instead of New York City or Los Angeles his travels are more likely to take him to Greensboro, N.C., for the ACC Tournament, or to the stands of a college arena where he used to delight thousands with his workman-like approach on the hardwood.
The same thing always comes to mind when Hayes’ efforts to bolster the Rockets’ roster take him back to Lexington.
“The times I’ve gone to see Kentucky, whether at the Pro Day or at the games, I sit there and watch, and interact with fans and I kind of think about my parents when I’m there,” said Hayes, who is 36 now. “What did they think? What was this experience like for them? What I’m experiencing right now, watching these young kids play the game and experiencing the passion of the fans and the proud tradition, what I’m experiencing now as a scout, is this what it felt like for my parents coming to the games?
“I started calling my dad and asking him, ‘Pops, what was that like? Watching your son with ESPN there and 20,000 people screaming, whether it’s for your son or against your son, what was that like?’”
Some things never change.
Q&A
What do you remember most about Coach Tubby Smith?
“He was always teaching on and off the court. … I took that in so much, because being a young man from California, he was the coach of the university that I committed to. Anything he said to me, I held it tight and close to me because I figured he had the recipe and pedigree to help me be successful.”
Was there ever a time when you questioned picking UK?
“I took four visits and none of them were in California, so leaving California wasn’t a really big scare for me. It was tough in the beginning because we were such a deep team my freshman year.”
If you hadn’t picked UK, which college would you have gone to?
“Probably Kansas,” said Hayes, but his four official visits also included two mid-majors: Saint Louis and Texas-El Paso. He still talks with coach Lorenzo Romar, then the head coach at Saint Louis, and Guy Beach, an assistant at UTEP who recruited him hard.
“Most small schools get intimidated when a big school starts going after one of their recruits, and Guy Beach didn’t care that Kentucky or Kansas came into the picture. He was like, ‘Nope, I was here first and I’mma stay here.’ And I respected it.”
What is your favorite on-court memory as a Wildcat?
“I’ve got too many. Just the relationships. The relationships that I still hold to this day. Strangers become friends, friends become family. Their kids, I consider them nephews and nieces.
What’s the most recent UK sporting event you attended?
Hayes, working as a scout, watched Kentucky defeat Vanderbilt, 78-64, in Nashville on Feb. 11.
Who has been your favorite UK player to watch during the past few seasons?
“Since I’ve retired (from playing), my favorite players that I’ve enjoyed watching as an alumni from Kentucky, were De’Aaron Fox, Bam Adebayo, and I really like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.”
Hayes noted that he has instructed his teenage son, Dorian, to study Gilgeous-Alexander’s game.
“Man, that kid got better. I remember watching him when he got on campus and seeing where his game is now, it’s inspiring. Those are guys that my son looks up to. You see the work ethic and just how much the guy wants it. It’s refreshing, how organic his development has been.”
Who was your sports idol growing up?
“I was a big-time college basketball guy growing up, and growing up in California, Charles Barkley and Chris Webber were it for me. Paul Pierce, when it came to college, I wanted to be like him so bad. Toby Bailey and Ed O’Bannon from UCLA. …
“It’s funny, I don’t think I’ve ever shared this with anybody, but I got stuck watching Kentucky ‘cause I was actually liking John Wallace’s games at Syracuse. When Syracuse played Kentucky in the 1996 Final Four, I was actually sitting there watching and being a fan of John Wallace but my eye kept catching Antoine Walker and Ron Mercer and Derek Anderson. He’s having to guard these guys and these dudes are just as good.…
“I kept watching Kentucky because they would be playing against my favorite college players. And then when Tayshaun went there, being a California guy, I looked up to Tayshaun and started watching Kentucky in ‘98, ‘99, just because of him.”
What do you wish someone had told you before you began your college sports career?
“Go there ready to learn. You’re gonna learn about other people and you’ll learn about yourself a lot. Have an open mind. I’m from California and I met people from Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Chicago, Atlanta, West Virginia, Ohio. I thought it was great that all those states are so close in proximity to Kentucky. I was able to create so many relationships with people and learn about their different backgrounds and upbringings. It gave me an open mind to things. Just be ready to soak it all in. I tell my son son all the time, ‘When you get to college, you’re gonna meet so many people who will help you personally just from listening to them tell their personal stories.’”
What is your biggest regret from your time at Kentucky?
“No regrets at all. I don’t regret it, but if could change it, I would have told (Rajon) Rondo to give me the ball after the first overtime against Michigan State in 2005. We got the ball and were able to take the last shot of the game. I probably should have just took the ball out of Rondo’s hands because he dribbled out the clock at the top of the key, did a dribble handoff to Kelenna (Azubuike), then Kelenna dribbled the ball to the other side of the court and didn’t get a shot off. I probably should have just told Rondo to give me the damn ball.”
Which of your former UK teammates do you stay in contact with the most?
“Ravi Moss and Josh Carrier made my college experience the best ever. I still talk to those gentlemen to this day. We were all in each others’ weddings. That’s what I appreciate the most.”
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 7:21 AM.
