Bill Russell is the greatest winner the NBA has ever seen, earning 11 championship rings. Now, titles back then would be the equivalent of a Conference Finals win today, and the league only had 12 teams, but it’s hard not to overstate how truly absurd 11 rings is. Russell’s teammates of the 1960s and ’70s Boston Celtics fill the list of players with the most titles. But the first non-Celtic, with seven titles to his name, is one who just always seemed to be in the right place at the right time: Robert Horry.
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Horry was constantly valued for his outside shooting, leadership and consistency. While there are vets who have been vital to their teams throughout history, no one had a career like Horry’s.
Horry was drafted to the Houston Rockets just in time to win two titles with Hakeem Olajuwon, only to be traded to the Suns in ’96. After a disastrous six months in Phoenix, he was sent on to LA.
In California, Horry was a part of the Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant Lakers three-peat. He ended his career with the early 2000s Spurs, who won behind Tim Duncan and David Robinson in 2005, and retired after snagging another title in 2007.
Horry played alongside talented big men at every stop of his career, so when the Lakers fell apart in this year’s playoffs, in no small part due to their lack of any playable bigs, he was the first to point it out.
“People don’t realize that the reason the Mavericks were so good last year is because those two bigs they had, they were erasing Luka’s mistakes… People forget how important certain bigs are to the team because they can erase mistakes. Look at what AD did…” said Horry while on the Nightcap podcast.
This was not as hot of a take as Horry made it seem. Both Rob Pelinka and JJ Redick have echoed a similar position.
“I recognize the need for size,” said JJ Redick
After the Lakers dropped Game 5 at home, it was obvious that the top three players on the roster and their level of talent had blinded people to just how threadbare the rest of the team was. Not just that, but huge fitness issues also fueled Redick’s decision to play the starters for the whole second half of Game 4.
When asked about it, Redick said this: “I recognize the need for size, and certainly Gobert in Games 4 and 5 really hurt us on the offensive glass. But it is about, ‘What do you have in front of you?’ “
The coach continued, “I can want to play up-tempo and move the ball side to side and run seven different actions on a different possession. Is that what’s best for my group? If the answer is no, then I’m not going to do that. So it is about just trying to figure out what’s best for the group.”
Redick stressed that as much as there were high expectations for an excellent team with an incredibly strong group of top-end talent, the roster was not ready to contend yet.
Redick needs to improve as a coach and Pelinka as a GM. But, if they figure it out, the league could have a huge problem on their hands very soon.
