Tom Brady just won his seventh championship.
What links you to Robert Horry.
Horry – who won titles with the Rockets of 1994 and 1995, the Lakers of 2000, 2001 and 2002 and the Spurs of 2005 and 2007 – via Melissa Rohlin of FOX Sports:
“More than half the time, I feel scorned because I don’t think people really liked what I did,” said Horry.
“A part of you gets angry because I don’t think people outside the NBA family – and when I say ‘NBA’, I’m saying coaches and players – they don’t really respect what I did and they don’t understand what I did and what that I was able to do, ”Horry told FOX Sports. “It’s always, ‘Oh, he was a part. Oh, he was part of it. ‘Yes, I was a part, but it was a significant part.
“You can’t eat Kool-Aid without sugar, and I was the sugar for most of those things.”
Horry won so many rings for several reasons:
- He was a solid player. He defended with efficiency and versatility. He divided the ground as a 3-point shot power in an era where those were scarce. He was comfortable in clutch situations.
- Well-run franchises aimed at him repeatedly. The types of organizations that are in contention for the championship covet players like Horry. His skill set allowed him to complement the stars. He also had the personality to fit the locker room with bigger egos.
- Since Horry did not fill the score box, especially not with points, his salary remained relatively modest. This is part of the reason why he appealed to the best teams. It also allowed the team that had enough financial flexibility to maximize the rest of the list.
- Luck. Horry played with Hakeem Olajuwon in Houston, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles and Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in San Antonio. Few good players are placed in so many excellent situations.
To extend Horry’s metaphor, a little sugar is removed from the bag and placed in the Kool-Aid mixture. But it is random which grains of sugar are near the top of the bag. The lower grains are no less sweet. They just weren’t in the right place.
Horry was often in the right place at the right time.
This does not make him a worthy or even close member of the Hall of Fame. He was never an All-Star, and not just because his traditional statistics were out of date. In his best season (with the 2001-02 Lakers), Horry recorded just 6.9 wins. For one perspective, this corresponds to DJ Augustin and Thaddeus Young in the regular NBA final season (2018-19).
But Horry was also a helpful contributor, who consistently raised his game in the playoffs. It did win seven titles. That also counts.
The people who classify Horry among the greatest of all time just because of the rings are wrong. The same is true of people who completely reject their achievements. However, people do both.
So – on the balance sheet – Horry is apparently treated fairly fairly.