There are few figures more fascinating than Robert Horry in the NBA Universe.
Born as a combo forward, Horry channeled, shaped his disruptive energy into a controlled power forward endowed with quick processing ability that shined at providing whatever his teams needed to compensate for what their stars lacked—a terrific recipe for a long and successful career.
However, it isn’t his skillset that made him such an interesting, magnetic player.
With his 7 rings, he is the most winning player of the modern NBA but was never considered a first-tier player throughout his career. This intersection of factors made him a polarizing figure in the collective imagination. On one hand, a segment of fans consider him a legendary player with almost superhuman qualities. On the other one, some just consider him one of the luckiest players ever.
Moreover, Horry forged his legend hitting important shots in crucial moments throughout his whole career. There’s certainly a luck component in his story and all the rhetoric about the clutchness can be cloying. But Horry’s “big shots” tell us a clear thing: He could stay on the floor in the most important possessions of a season. That’s not given, but rather a sign of how he didn’t have major flaws that opponents could exploit and play him off the floor.
So novices and romantics are bewitched by his “clutchness” and swagger. Some viewers discredit and despise him for what he represents in “Ring Culture.” Amid all this noise, Horry the player can become blurry.
What I asked myself was, simply: “what was he like on the floor?”
CRIMSON BLOCK BOB
After a decorated career at Andalusia High School ended with the Naismith Alabama High School Player of the Year award, Robert Horry committed to Alabama and enrolled as a freshman in 1988.
He went through a steady development and by his senior season he was the clear defensive anchor of the team and a solid offensive player, while Latrell Sprewell was the first offensive option.
During his career at Alabama, Horry looked like a prospect who would’ve become a Draft Twitter darling nowadays. He was a lanky, lengthy 6’9/6’10 forward who excelled as a team defender, could check players on the perimeter, and had a solid base of connective passing and shooting. And he looked like a White Men Can’t Jump (that ironically premiered during his senior season and its trailer was shown during the games’ broadcasts) or The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air character with his swagger and that sick fade haircut.
His defensive potential was obvious. He was consistently running up and down the court, defending centers and forwards, pressing full court on smaller players, rotating and deterring shots, flying around sending attempts into the stands. He wasn’t the most refined or the physically strongest defender but his energy and instincts mixed with his anticipation and great hand placement made him an overwhelming defensive presence.
Horry was a true stocks generator: he averaged 3.5 blocks and 1.5 steals during his senior season. Obviously, blocks and steals aren’t everything, but his numbers give an idea of the level of his disruptive defensive nature and overall dynamism.
For reference, Shaquille O’Neal had 157 blocks in the 91-92 season, while Horry had 121. They were the only players in SEC history to finish a season with at least 100 blocks at the time.
(Yes, that’s Shaquille O’Neal blocked by Robert Horry)
Just for reference to further understand how special these numbers were, he still is Alabama’s all-time leader per career blocks at 286 in 134 games.
However, at Alabama, he was required to do a lot of the post-up stuff that was considered the bread and butter of every respectable power forward at the time. With his thin frame and his relatively weak lower body, this kind of traditional playstyle didn’t suit him.
Also, he wasn’t only a disruptive defensive force, he was also known for his unruly behavior. Indeed, he wasn’t always able to keep his temper in bounds and was prone to excessive fouls and complaints.
The towel thrown to Danny Ainge that marked the end of his brief and forgotten Suns experience or the infamous hip check on Nash (maybe he still had some resentment towards the Suns?) are two clear examples of his excesses on the court. However, maturing he became way more controlled than his early years.
At this point, we had begun to see Horry in his flexible, energetic defense. His offensive role was more unclear and would eventually be defined in the NBA.
HORRY, THE ROCKET
After his Senior season ended with a loss against North Carolina in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Robert Horry was drafted with the 11th pick in the 1992 draft by the Houston Rockets.
The Rockets were headlined by All-Stars Hakeem Olajuwon and Otis Thorpe and were coming from a chaotic season in which they replaced coach Don Chaney with his assistant and Rockets legend Rudy Tomjanovich.
As a rookie, he immediately claimed the Rockets’ starting small forward spot in place of Buck Johnson who signed with the Washington Bullets as a free agent the previous summer.
Horry clearly was perceived as a defensive-first player early in his professional career. He had pretty simple tasks on offense but was probably lucky to find on his path a coach like Rudy Tomjanovich who believed in his perimeter potential anyway and didn’t try to confine Horry into a more traditional frontcourt role. Tomjanovich played a major role in shaping his offensive game in those early years.
While on defense he had important duties as a free roamer starting with covering the less dangerous forward on the floor, on offense Tomjanovich built for Horry an easier role founded on his energy and dynamism. He was contributing mostly through opportunistic scoring, cutting, and crashing the offensive glass with continuity.
Watching the tape I heard a comment from the broadcaster that expressed efficaciously what was Horry’s role in the Rockets’ offense at the time:
“Every time Olajuwon apparently is in trouble, Robert Horry is his bail-out guy, he’s always moving, slashing to the basket, cutting”
In 1994, Horry still played mostly as a small forward next to Otis Thorpe and Hakeem Olajuwon. Having a 6’9 lengthy defender at small forward alongside two other true big men raised the Rockets’ defensive floor. Indeed, they were second per defensive rating in 1993-94 at 101.4 in the regular season. And if we want to summarize that team, they were a defensive juggernaut almost completely dependent on Olajuwon on offense.
As a sophomore, Horry was already a well-established starter and played 33.8 minutes per game in the playoffs. It’s impressive how he was able to carry the burden of such a large and meaningful role that early in his career. It’s incredibly rare to find a sophomore able to do it on a contender.
A GLIMPSE OF FUTURE
This game-winning shot against the Magic in 1995 is just one of the many clutch shots that created Horry’s legendary fame and this single possession tells us a long story about the 1995 Rockets.
Hakeem Olajuwon, defended by a young Shaquille O’Neal, receives the ball in the low post with a well-spaced offense around him, draws the double-team, and kicks out to Robert Horry on the left wing for the game-winning spot up three.
That was their new reality.
But let’s start from the beginning.
It’s always hard to repeat success after winning a championship and the Rockets learned it in the first half of the 1994-95 season. After being undefeated in the first 9 games of the season, they went 20-16 and realized something wasn’t working anymore. Soon after a bad loss against the Clippers, the worst team in the league, they traded for Clyde Drexler who was on an expiring deal with the Portland Trail Blazers and explicitly expressed his interest to join the Houston Rockets.
On February 14, the Rockets sent Otis Thorpe, Marcelo Nicola, and a first-round pick to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for the 32 years old Clyde Drexler and Tracy Murray.
Drexler is a University of Houston alumn as well as Hakeem Olajuwon, a reunification was strongly desired by the longtime friends.
“I can’t wait for the first game, I really can’t. He’s the best player in the league, and it’s been a dream of ours ever since we left the University of Houston to play together again.”
Clyde Drexler to the Associated Press
Otis Thorpe was a meaningful part of the team that won the ring the season before and drastically changing your structure on the run requires a lot of courage. But that move paid off and put them and Hakeem on another offensive level.
The 3-point line, which was 23 feet 9 inches at its farthest point in ‘93/’94, was moved to 22 feet before the 94/95 season, and this allowed Tomjanovich and his Rockets to became one of the very first teams in NBA history (along with the Magic they faced during those Finals probably) to fully take advantage of three-pointers and not attempt them just as an extemporaneous solution.
They went from a .191 team Three Point Attempt Rate in 1994 to .267 in 1995, an important shift in their shot distribution.
They turned from a team with a traditional, tough, physically imposing playstyle with two bigs to a futuristic setting that allowed them to deploy several 4-shooter lineups around Hakeem Olajuwon.
Horry was the key to this evolution.
At this point, after a couple of seasons with limited attempts and results, he had become a reliable shooter that could knock down enough spot up threes to force defenses to pay attention to him.
Moving on from the 2-big structure and putting Horry at power forward, in a kind of primordial stretch-4 role, increased significantly the Rockets’ offensive ceiling. Otis Thorpe was a great player, an All-Star, but his lack of a long-range shot hurt the spacing and limited their offensive ceiling.
Horry was also crucial because he was an acceptable defender against many power forwards. During the ’95 Playoffs run, he was the primary defender of Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman, and Horace Grant. Karl Malone was the exception. Against the Jazz, the Rockets were spending other less relevant players like Chucky Brown or Pete Chilcutt on a physical freak like “The Mailman,” while Horry was permitted to float on the other forward with the license to rotate and help at the rim.
The Rockets set the NBA record per attempted and made threes during the 1994-95 season. They attempted 21.4 threes per game and 22.7 per 100 possessions in the Regular Season. These numbers went up during the 1995 Playoffs: they attempted 22.0 threes per game and 23.6 per 100 possessions, making them at a 39.1% rate. These are more threes than what the Spurs attempted in their legendary 2014 run. We have to take into account that the three point line was closer to the rim in 1995 but that’s an incredible accomplishment anyway.
Teams just weren’t structured to cover that much ground defensively. And limit Hakeem Olajuwon with that much space around him was simply impossible. For example, the Spurs were a great defensive team and Robinson was arguably the best player in the league to try to stop them defensively but they were regularly lining up too many big bodies.
Ironically this was probably the most modern version of Robert Horry. At this point of his career, he was an agile help side defender with a 0.423 three point attempt rate. That’s the profile of someone that would thrive in today’s league, a profile with its outline seen in first-year player Taylor Hendricks, for example.
HORRY, THE LAKER
In 1996, Horry became the Rockets’ “sacrificial lamb” to meet Charles Barkley’s request to be traded to Rudy Tomjanovich’s team.
His forgotten experience with the Suns lasted only 32 games and ended with the infamous “Towel-gate” and a trade to the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I hated Danny Ainge, I’m not even gonna lie. I hated him. We beat them so many times when he was in Phoenix when I was with the Rockets. Mario Elie is one of my good friends, and in one of the playoff games, he took the ball out – Danny Ainge was a pitcher – he hit Mario in the face with the ball on purpose.”
Robert Horry on the Big Shot Bob Podcast
The duo composed of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal was pretty much identical conceptually to the Drexler-Hakeem duo. With Phil Jackson and his triangle, they probably even had a more traditional approach than the ’95 Rockets.
Does this possession remind you of the Olajuwon-Horry synergy?
In addition, Horry was a great performer for the Triangle Offense. The “triple post offense” is a position-less kind of basketball and ideally, every player on the floor should be able to play every fundamental position of the offense.
Horry’s skillset and versatility allowed him to play pretty much in every position of the offensive schemes. He excelled as the “weakside wing” thanks to his cutting and his intuition for offensive rebounds. His shooting and passing were well suited for the Key, Wing, and Top of the Key positions. The Post position generally was occupied by Shaq but he could be a decent performer on the run or when the triangle was changing the side of the court.
An example of the Lakers’ “Triangle” initial setting.
In this kind of offense, it was crucial to be able to throw decent passes to the post player, the vertex of all three of the triangles. Horry was a great entry-passer from every non-post position on the floor. He clearly developed this (once?) fundamental skill throwing thousands of passes to Hakeem Olajuwon.
In his Lakers experience, he wasn’t an actual starter anymore but still generally was part of the closing lineup.
He also proceeded in his transition into a more “traditional” power forward. He was bigger and his upper body looked stronger, though also made him less agile in space. This development was probably intended to make his life easier against the big power forwards of the early 00s.
He had more duties as a rebounder and as a screener; he wasn’t strictly a spot up shooter but he was allowed to put the ball on the floor if needed. That was probably the context where he had the most diversified offensive usage during his career.
Even the stats give us an idea of how his role changed compared to his Rockets seasons. His rebound percentages, his free throw rate, and his stocks percentages all saw a positive trend. What you would expect from a combo forward transitioning to a more strictly big man role.
His rebounding was on full display during his seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers. He used to set strong box-outs, with good technique and crafty use of his elbows on the edge of the rules and was pretty quick to recognize the angle of the ball after the rebound.
The matchup with Chris Webber was emblematic of his type of rebounding. Webber (an awesome, underrated player in my opinion) was more of an athletic rebounder, his box-outs weren’t always on point and Horry’s gave him trouble. In the 2002 Western Conference Finals, Horry averaged 11.1 rebounds per game with a 23% defensive rebound percentage compared to his career playoff average of 16%.
During his Lakers’ tenure, his game was refined from experience while his legs still had fuel left. In the early 00s, with the evidence of his pivotal role along Shaq and Kobe, his incredible ability to fill the gaps left open by the stars of his teams, the real x-factor of his career, became striking.
HORRY, THE SPUR
Robert Horry signed with the San Antonio Spurs in July 2003, at almost 33 years old, on the wane of his career. He couldn’t offer much more than 20 minutes per game consistently, he was slower and mostly a spot-up shooter at that point of his career.
However, he was a perfect piece in Gregg Popovich’s basketball idea, which has always been founded on ball sharing and individual processing, and still managed to have an impactful role for at least further 4 seasons.
“He does everything well. He can defend. He can run the floor. And — as we all know — he can hit big shots. We’re excited to add a player with his skills, experience, and leadership to our team.”
R.C. Buford commenting on Horry signing
From a skillset standpoint he was pretty much always the same but this was probably Horry’s most cerebral version. He made up for his athletic shortcomings with a high level of understanding and anticipation. He rarely committed major mistakes and his execution was almost flawless.
He was fundamental on Popovich’s chessboard to allow him to change identity on the run, going from the bigger starting lineups with two bigs (Nazr Mohammed first and Elson, Oberto later) to the lineups with Duncan at center.
Ten years apart from that game-winning shot against the Magic, Horry made probably his most iconic shot in Game 5 of the 2005 Finals against the Detroit Pistons, a series-swinging moment that represented the ideal crowning of his career.
That game is a prime example of the late Horry and his overall (inexplicable?) nature.
He struggled defensively for three quarters against Ben and Rasheed Wallace’s physicality and provided a limited offensive contribution. Then he scored a three pointer, suddenly woke up from his torpor, and dominated the 4th quarter through rebounding, shooting, and attacking the always more pressing closeouts.
“He’s just Mr. Intangibles, he’s everywhere and you must pay attention because he keeps things alive under pressure on your offensive board”
Hubie Brown during the broadcast of Game 5 of the 1995 NBA Finals
BIG SHOT BOB, REASON & EMOTION
Trying to capture Robert Horry’s true essence is a challenge that puts a strain on the rational, analytic basketball viewer. His figure goes beyond what can be measured and quantified and can raise questions and doubts about our vision of basketball.
As we saw in this article, the majority of his success can be explained without the need to use vague, mystical terms like “clutchness.” Considering his skillset and his key tactical role, it’s easy to understand why he was so crucial for his teams despite his generally unimpressive raw numbers. And his futuristic ability to fill the gaps of his team (isn’t it what we generally require to power forwards nowadays?) that made him a desirable target for competitive teams completes the big picture here.
However, even the most rational observer can’t ignore the fact that he seemed to have a different drive, a different inner motivation (boosted by his increased relevance on the chessboard?) when the pressure was higher. He apparently had an internal flame that blazed the most whenever the lights shined the brightest, something more appropriate for a psychology essay than a basketball article.
And this part of his figure is probably what made him one of the most legendary, special, and loved “normal” players in NBA history.
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