With the Basketball Hall of Fame enshrining the 2015 class in about a week, we take a look at Robert Horry, a polarizing case that should be looked at extensively. He is the winningest team player in recent memory, but his individual accolades and statistics make him a very interesting case for Hall of Fame consideration.
THE CASE FOR:
Horry won 7 NBA titles. That’s the most among any player that wasn’t on the 1950s-60s Celtics. He won two championships with the Rockets (1994, 1995), three with the Lakers (2000, 2001, 2002) and two with the Spurs (2005, 2007).
Horry played 16 seasons and made the playoffs in every one of his seasons. The only other players to play as many seasons (or more) and make the playoffs in every year are John Stockton, Karl Malone and Tim Duncan.
Horry played his best in big games. He earned the nickname “Big Shot Rob” for one clutch shot after another.
His top 10 playoff moments (from NBA TV): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0gWflbw_E4
THE CASE AGAINST:
Horry played in 1107 career games, and started only 43.3% of those games. Are you a Hall of Famer if you can’t crack the starting lineup on your own team? He was not an individual star as his career regular season scoring average of 7.0 points per game suggests.
Horry was inefficient. He never shot at least 50% from the field and his PER was below the league average in each of his 16 regular seasons. His career efficiency rating is 10.7% less than the league average.
Peter Newmann is an analyst and writer who spent 10 years at ESPN, 8 as the NBA senior researcher working 24/7 on the league. He wrote game notes for crews, articles for ESPN.com, analysis for studio shows, and regularly assisted reporters and writers. Follow him on Twitter, and check out his Web site, www.peternewmann.com.
How can Horry be a Hall of Famer when the Hall of Fame itself isn’t even a legitimate Hall of Fame. That thing is a joke. The process is top-secret, nobody knows who votes, it’s not an NBA Hall of Fame, people that have absolutely no business being in there are in there, overseas players few people have heard of and women (come on) that wouldn’t have been top players in a pickup game at the local Jewish Community Center are in there. And then there’s the ridiculous “contributor” category. And stupid things like the induction of the 1960 and 1992 USA Olympic teams. Not the players. The teams. And it’s not exclusive to this particular Hall of Fame, but there’s the slew of obvious steroid-pumped 80s and 90s players in there, and soon the steroid-pumped 00s players. And then there are the inducted players that were very good in college, but massive disappointments in the pros. They’re in there.
To top it all off, so many media people don’t know that it’s not an NBA Hall of Fame in the first place. In fact, it’s a purported Hall of Fame of anything and everything that ever touched a basketball, be it high school, college, women, men, overseas, sportswriting, the Olympics, in a front office, in ownership, entire teams, and on and on and on.
That place is a joke. A travesty. But the NBA is terrified to alienate a single consumer or any group and wants to open every networking business opportunity they can, so they’ll never create their own Hall of Fame. It’s like putting filet mignon on top of a shrimp cocktail and then dropping on top two scoops of chocolate ice cream. Just because they’re all a quality food doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to be lumped together all in one dish.
So Robert Horry made some clutch shots at the right time and happened to be fortunate enough to be a member of NBA title teams even though overall he was a mediocre player? Sure, why not, put him in there. If the All American Red Heads are preposterously deemed worthy enough to be inducted, then why not Horry. Hell, everybody is afraid to alienate anybody these days, even the folks at basketball-reference.com don’t have the guts to call him what his Spurs teammates nicknamed him, Big Shot Bob. Nope, he never liked “Bob,” so he wanted it changed to Big Shot Rob. So that’s what the site and an entire weak-kneed basketball media now pretends the nickname was, Big Shot Rob. Even the nicknames aren’t authentic anymore.