I just might have to buy a new jersey!

Was stumbling around on the Interwebs yesterday...

when I ran across this gem of an article.

Allow me to quote the great Robert Horry:

"I don't want to retire, especially after a year like I had last year,''
...
"I didn't get a full season in like I wanted to see if it's really time for me to retire. My last game I want to walk off the court sweating. My last game so far I walked off the court with a DNP (did not play) and I don't want it to happen that way.''

This makes me all happy and sad all at once. And you may ask - why is that? Well... first, I would love for Mr. Robert Horry to return to the Houston Rockets for his last season. That would be super badass. Horry could teach Luis Scola and Carl Landry - and now Joey Dorsey - all sorts of tricks of the trade (yes, even the sneaky playoff hip-check on former MVP Canadian players - you can never trust them with their beady eyes and flapping heads).

........ also, Horry's return would allow me to go buy another awesome Rockets jersey!!

[here I would have inserted a preview image of the Horry #25 jersey, but apparently the NBA store can't let me speculate on such things - I can't even order an Horry #25 jersey right now if I wanted to. What kinda bullshit is that??]

Moving along, on the flip side - there are at least three reasons why my reaction to this Horry news is somewhat muted:

1. The Rockets have a glut of power forwards.
2. Horry can't exactly teach T-Mac how to be clutch.
3. Horry appears to be the last person to know that he's done.

Yes, I am sad to admit, but even *I* think Horry should hang it up. It really sucks that he got a DNP-CD in his last game. It really sucks that he made exactly 0 FGs in the series against the Lakers. It really, really sucks that Horry might have to beg and plead for a job. But... Horry should retire. San Antonio is not going to sign him. The Rockets are highly unlikely to sign him. From the sound of the article -- those are the only places he's really considering. And as bad as last season was for the future Hall of Famer... I really don't think he has another "good" season in him... the league is not kind to 38 year old situational power forwards. You have no idea how much it kills me to type that.

I'll just choose to remember the good times:

Tim Keown? You are On Notice!

Hey, Tim Keown... I usually like what you write. Usually.

But after today - you are On Notice!

No one (NO ONE!) disses Robert Horry like that and gets away with it here!!

Now, Tim, go stand over in the corner next to Ian Thomsen and the Sports Guy.

Bench Robert Horry? You lose.

Hey, San Antonio... when you have a proven asset on your roster, it is usually wise to actually exploit this asset before the Mamba sends you home for the summer.

To recap:

With 2.1 seconds left in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals... the Spurs were down by 2 points. And they had possession -- with an inbounds play to be drawn up. Hmmm, down 2 points, time running out and trying to avoid going down 3-1 in the Western Conference Finals... that sounds very familiar. Oh, yeah, now I know why!




So, Coach Pop draws up a play for the most clutch NBA playoff performer of all-time, right? (No?!?!?) How the hell does Robert Horry not get the ball there?

Sure, Brent Barry was fouled. No, that's never actually going to be called a foul there. Plus, the dude was 30 feet from the basket and facing the wrong direction. As far as designing in-bounds plays go - that one was quite awful. Horry may not have made a shot to that point in the game, but the entire building knew he would have made a 3 to win that game if you got him the ball. Idiots.

THEN, adding insult to injury...

In what might have been Big Shot Rob's final NBA game, how do the Spurs use him?



You gotta be f--king kidding me... a DNP-CD??

Just for that, the Spurs deserved to lose.

Robert Horry for the HOF (plea #3)

... and I didn't even have to write the article this time.

JA Adande wrote today's plea. I'm just linking to it here.

Though I think he might have lifted my "Robert Horry is the greatest winner of the modern era" tagline to finish his own column...

I guess that was a false alarm

The rumors of Robert Horry's retirement have been greatly exaggerated...

or he and his team just felt like playing a few more games.

Though as much as I am a huge Horry fan, I was actually hoping CP3 would win and he would be able to match up against Kobe. Now I'm just praying that we aren't subjected to a Detroit/San Antonio Finals again. (Detroit v. Kobe... sure. Boston v. Kobe... even better. Boston v. San Antonio... hmmmmmm.)

I did find it odd that both Steve Javie *and* Dick Bavetta were the refs last night. Javie seems to be the ref at most every playoff game this year. Even though he's the worst referee in the league not named "Violet Palmer."

... let the conspiracy talk begin. David Stern obviously doesn't care. He's not even trying to be subtle about it anymore.

Robert Horry for the HOF (plea #2)

Last night, Robert Horry set a new milestone: Most playoff games ever (238). He surpassed the record previously held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I guess it helps to be a Laker for part of your career if you want to play in a lot of playoff games (?)

This is just another playoff-related record for Mr. Horry. His name is all over the record book for various things accomplished in the months of April through June. Particularly in June... or did everyone forget the dude has seven rings. Seven! (More than MJ!)

Yes, it still hurts to see Horry in a Spurs jersey. It hurts a lot. But anyway...

Sadly, because the Spurs cannot win in even-numbered years and now trail the New Orleans Hornets 3 games to 2 after losing last night, I realized that the next game the Spurs play just might be the last time we see Robert Horry in an NBA uniform. Think about that for a second.

Thursday night could possibly be the last game of Robert Horry's career.

Horry was part of the loaded draft of 1992 (Shaq, Alonzo, Laettner, Harold Miner, etc. etc.).

1992!??!?!

Horry has won championship rings in 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2007. Because the Spurs fear even numbers, I think it's safe to say Horry will not get ring #8 this year. And that's okay. (Just so long as Utah doesn't win a ring, I'll be fine.)

What kills me though is seeing this on ESPN this morning:

"won't get into the Hall of Fame..." Why the hell not? Why is Horry already precluded from even being considered a Hall of Famer? No, he has not been an All Star before. No, Horry does not average 20 points a game or grab 15 rebounds or some other hollow statistical marker you might deem notable. All the guy has done for 17 years is win. Win! That's what the game is about.

Put another way... every season Robert Horry has been in the NBA - his team has made the playoffs. Every. Single. Year. His bio is quite fantastic. So maybe Horry hasn't been named an All Star before... but whose career would you rather have? Robert Horry's? ... or Vince Carter's? (or even Tracy McGrady's?) Vince Carter may have been half-amazing at one time in his life, but he'd trade places with Horry immediately. So would McGrady.

So I readily acknowledge that Thursday might be the end of the career of my favorite player. All good things must come to an end sometime (like 22 game winning streaks...). Consequently, The Robert Horry for the Hall of Fame Campaign will shift into overdrive here whenever he officially hangs up the sneakers for good. Horry will forever be a Houston Rocket to me.


... nice hair, dude.

There is only one #25 - it's not Gerald Green

What the hell is this? I'm all for the Gerald Green trade. He's a native Houstonian. He's young and athletic. He can blow out candles and dunk at the same time. All good things.

Except this.

There is only one player who deserves to wear #25 with "Houston" or "Rockets" on the front of the jersey. His name is not Gerald Green. It's this guy:

This is almost as insulting as the Oakland Raiders letting LaMont Jordan wear Bo's #34. Yes, it's true - someone else is wearing #34 for the Silver and Black. It's blasphemy. Just like the Rockets letting someone else wear Robert Horry's number.

I realize that Horry isn't retired yet, and that's why his number hasn't been retired officially by the team. Nevertheless, if we can retire Carroll Dawson's "jersey" (with the number "CD"?) - how we haven't retired all of the numbers from the Championship Team is beyond me. Horry played 4 years for Houston. He's going to contribute more than Gerald Green ever will. Of this I have no doubt.

It's insulting enough that Chauncey Billups is trying to infringe upon Horry's should-be-trademarked nickname of "Big Shot ___". Chauncey has made ONE "Big Shot" in his entire career. And that somehow gives him claim to Horry's nickname? Gerald Green has even less of a claim to Horry's number.

Hey, Rockets equipment manager -- fix this egregious mistake before it's too late!!!

The answer is Robert Horry - there is no debate

... nonetheless, I figured I'd pump up this story as much as I can. It's a good debate if you like obvious choices:

"Big Shot Bob" v. "Mr. Big Shot"


I think it's quite obvious that Chauncey Billups isn't even in the same ballpark as Robert Horry. Hell, he's not even in the same league. They are not even playing the same sport when it comes to who is more "clutch".

No offense to Pistons fans, but 7 rings is greater than 1 ring. Always.



Besides, Chauncey might have 2 clutch shots... Horry has 5 minutes worth of YouTube highlights:



Yet we traded him for an aging Charles Barkley. Excuse me, I have to go cry again.

Jordan v. Hakeem - who wins?

So, yesterday I was patrolling the blogosphere as I usually do on Mondays during lunch...

Where I stumbled into an article on The Big Lead about the Lakers/Cavs game from Sunday (i.e. Kobe v. LeBron). In the article, there was a backhanded statement about Michael Jordan being "the greatest winner in the modern era." Which I thought was rather presumptuous.

Naturally, I felt compelled to immediately comment that Robert Horry - and not Michael Jordan - is the greatest winner of the modern era. Last I checked 7 rings is more than 6 rings. Seems like simple math to me.

(Yes it kills me to link to a picture of him in an evil Spurs jersey, but... uhh...)

My comment for some reason started a "Robert Horry? Are you kidding me?" level of response from fellow commenters. To which I said, "hell yes, I am serious!"

I do not dispute that Michael Jordan is the greatest NBA player of the modern era. I'm not even sure who else would be in the discussion with him if the modern era is the mid-60s and beyond. But Jordan is NOT the greatest "winner" of the era. Of course, this led some random Bulls fan to post the following comment:

"I point out that if Jordan had not retired twice in the 90’s, the Bulls would have swept that decade."

Yeah, we all know that is b.s. Everyone wants to dilute the awesomeness that is/was the '94 and '95 Houston Rockets back-to-back championship teams. You know, the Heart of a Champion and all that good stuff. Damn I miss Rudy T. Anyway, my counter-argument was this:

"If Kenny Smith could make a f--kin’ jumpshot against Seattle in Game 7 in 1993, the Jordan-era Bulls only two-peat the first time around."

The early to mid-90s Bulls were great, no doubt. But the Rockets were a nightmare matchup for Jordan and Pippen. In 1990/1991 through 1992/1993 (i.e. the first three-peat Bulls teams), the Rockets went 5-1 against Chicago. Yes, Jordan played each game. Mad Max did an admirable job keeping Jordan below his seasonal averages and forcing MJ to take more shots than he normally did. Meanwhile, Pippen (as usual) could not win important games by himself and no one on the Bulls roster could contain Hakeem or Otis Thorpe.

Really, look for yourself:

Game 1 (1991): Rockets 114, Bulls 92
Game 2 (1991): Rockets 100, Bulls 90
Game 3 (1992): Bulls 114, Rockets 100 (dammit!)
Game 4 (1992): Rockets 105, Bulls 102 (Jordan held to 22)
Game 5 (1993): Rockets 110, Bulls 96
Game 6 (1993): Rockets 94, Bulls 83

Rockets were 5-1 versus the intial three-peat era Bulls. And only one of the victories was "close" and could be deemed a toss-up. Like I said, Mad Max could match up with MJ (not "stop" him per se, but just keep him from treating the Rockets like he did LaBradford Smith). Meanwhile, Hakeem would be able to run wild versus the Bulls lack of size and talent in the middle. Then again, NO ONE could stop Hakeem from 1991 through 1995. Or do I need to link to the David Robinson clip again? I think I do.

The problem with the Rockets in the early 1990s was that we matched up *horribly* with the Seattle Supersonics. Gary Payton routinely abused Kenny Smith. Shawn Kemp routinely abused Otis Thorpe, Carl Herrera and whatever other tall body we threw at him. Detlef Schrempf always made clutch shots against us, and so did Derrick McKey. We just had major problems with that one particular team. And yet we somehow extended the series in 1993 to Game 7...

where Kenny Smith somehow failed to remember that his only job was to make open shots. Naturally he missed and sent the game to overtime whereby we'd end up losing. In high school I was asked to write an essay on my "most disappointing moment in life" - Kenny Smith missing that jumpshot was my Moment. I once saw the Jet at a movie theater a few years later and my mom had to prevent me from taunting him about that shot.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the Bulls. If Kenny somehow makes that shot - the Rockets would have made it to the NBA Finals (please... we'd have beaten Barkley and the Suns just like we ended up doing in '94 and '95). Where we'd have matched up perfectly with the Bulls and been able to stop the first three-peat from ever happening.

1992/1993 Houston Rockets roster:

The 1992/1993 Chicago Bulls roster:

Starting lineups of G: Kenny Smith, G: Mad Max, F: Robert Horry, F: Otis Thorpe, C: Hakeem Olajuwon v. G: BJ Armstrong, G: Michael Jordan, F: Scottie Pippen, F: Horace Grant, C: Bill Cartwright.

It would be an epic matchup. I've already explained how Mad Max would check MJ. Kenny Smith and BJ Armstrong is a wash. Horry scored enough and was athletic enough to stay with Pippen (though Pippen would likely outscore him a little, and out-jackass him by a lot). Otis Thorpe and Horace Grant were basically the same player. And no one could stop Hakeem. Who, oh by the way, SHOULD have been the MVP in 1993. Check the stats.

The only true empirical evidence we have proves that the Rockets were a nightmare matchup for the Chicago Bulls. A 5-1 record with only one close game. The only thing going for the Bulls would be that Sam Cassell would not arrive in Houston until the 1993/1994 season. That's why Jordan retired. He knew the run was inevitably over!

I still can't believe that's been 15 years ago. Wow.