The wing that triumphed with Rockets, Lakers and Spurs often putting the decisive shots confessed to the Gazzetta: “Jackson and Popovich unique for how they stimulated the group. I took the one you needed to win”
“The right man, in the right place”. There is a man who perhaps most of all represents this motto in the world of basketball: Robert Horry, who played in NBA from 1992 to 2008, graduating champion on seven occasions. Two titles in Houston, three in Los Angeles with the Lakers and the last two with the San Antonio Spurs, to crown a legendary career that made him the most winning player of the modern era. Horry was the right man in the right place, and not only because he won everywhere he played (with the exception of the year with the Phoenix Suns): his ability to come out in the decisive moments earned him the nickname of “Big Shot Rob”, because some of the heaviest shots in the history of the playoffs bear his signature. And Horry retraced that incredible journey that was his career, with the bright gaze of recalling the past with joy, with the awareness of having left a gigantic imprint in the game he loves.
In 2021 the NBA released a video to celebrate his 75th anniversary with all the legends of the game: there is a time when a girl shouts “Big Shot Rob!”, And there is she who make the gesture of the seven rings. Returning at the beginning, at the Draft night, would he ever imagine such a career?
“No, it was something that was definitely beyond my imagination. When a player begins his career, he is often chosen by a team in which he does not want to play, while I was called by the Rockets, and I was very excited to play Houston. There was Olajuwon, there was a good roster, and looking at my talent and the characteristics of the team I knew it would be a perfect fit for me. I can be proud of my career: there are magnificent players that I admired growing up, like Pat Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, who unfortunately did not win anything.
How was his path to become “Big Shot Rob”?
“For me the key has always been fun. My path was magnificent and very fun: it was essential to have so much confidence in myself, regardless of what could happen around me, but even more to be able to enjoy the moments I was living. Many see basketball like a sport or like a business, and certainly it is, but it is also fun: you must also learn to live it as such, While in the field. it’s what I have always tried to do during my career, going beyond sport, beyond business “.
Houston, Los Angeles, San Antonio: as Cesare said, he arrived, he observed, he won. Did he feel the feeling that each of these teams could be winning?
“Every time I changed the team I looked at the roster, the amount of talent present and I thought – with the exception of Phoenix in ’96 – that it could be a winning team. If you look at the quintetti, each of these teams had a dominant center: Hakeem Ai Rockets, Shaq Ai Lakers, Tim Duncan at the Spurs. All three are among the best ever. team? I am able to model my game to be that glue that makes the team best? ‘ I probably could have become a brighter star, but in the end the only thing that counted was to win, and I knew exactly what was to be my role to improve the production of a team. to win “.
He named Olajuwon, Shaq, Duncan, and there would also be Kobe, Ginobili, Parker. What did he feel knowing that legends like these trusted her for the decisive shot?
“It is really fantastic. He has appointed some of the best ever, members of the Hall of Fame, and knowing that in the end they entrusted me to me was the push that always gave me that more something. I have to thank them, because on certain occasions they could have built a shot by themselves, but they, as well as the coaches, counted on me. And regardless of what the press can tell, or from what the opponents say and the fans and the fans. A team game, and knowing that your team trusts you, counts on you and believes that you can put the decisive shot is the best possible feeling, the most beautiful gratification that this game can give you “.
Speaking of coach, he was trained by two of the best ever: Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich. In what aspects, in your opinion, did they excel over the others?
“When you get to a certain level and get used to winning, you can see what the recurring dynamics are. All coaches say they enhance teammates, but then there are those who know how to give players the right trust, understand them and make sure that they can be themselves. Phil and pop, in different ways and with their styles, in this they were very similar. If you look at the teams they had, you could even think that the coach Not even, given the talent of the players, but it was essential that they grabbed in the group that mutual trust necessary to win. Team, or one who comes out of the bench, the coach must speak to you in the same way, because it is so that relationships are built. Masters, and have built winning systems “.
He has stopped playing for several years now, but there is a particular moment of his career that would like to relive?
“I would say everything. It was so beautiful, from the beginning: I think of the first year in which we lost against Seattle, then we won for two years in a row, in the fourth I was below expectations and I was mistaken, but there was no moment that I did not enjoy it. Maybe I would like to relive the last year, I think I would do things differently. I knew that the sixteenth year would be my last one in the League, The thing I would change in hindsight.
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