FanPost

Horry for Hall? Surely, you jest.

I was reading some old blogs of yours, and I came by an entry where you called Robert Horry a Hall of Famer.  I realize it was probably the euphoria of Game 5 that caused you to write it, but Simmons wrote the same thing too.  So I feel compelled, as always, to be the turd in the punch bowl.

First off, let me clarify I like Robert Horry.  I can't say I like him as much as the next guy, obviously, because the next guy in this case thinks he's a Hall of Famer.  Regardless, I'm glad he's on my team.

That being said, Robert Horry is in no way, shape, or form a Hall of Famer.  He's not even a Hall of Very Gooder.  

First of all, people seem to ignore the fact that 75% of every season, the guy steals money.  Yes, I know everyone in the NBA steals money, but Horry is the Ocean Eleven of the league.  I know it's a popular cliche that regular seasons don't matter in the NBA or NHL, but is that really true?
If everybody on the Spurs, probably one of the top five talented and coached teams in the league, approached their regular season with Horry-like effort and intensity November-March, we'd be a lottery team.  Maybe I'm an unsentimental bastard, but I think it's kind of selfish to annually ask your teammates to bust their asses to win 55+ games while you're sipping raspberry lemonade, working on your tan, (VERY nice tan on Robert, by the way) and getting pedicures on the bench and just to show up in mid-April.

Anyway, besides my ethical objections, let's discuss the various reasons he doesn't belong, okay?

1) The obvious.  7.5 ppg, 5.0 rbg.  These are his regular seasoon averages.  Yikes.  Robert hasn't even been a decent player since his Rocket days.

Is Uncle Cliffy a Hall of Famer?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/robincl02.html

How about Big Dog Robinson?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/robingl01.html

Or closer to home, how about Sean Elliott?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/e/elliose01.html

All those guys have numbers that blow Robert's away, and they're not gonna get in the Hall.  And in basketball, almost everybody gets in the hall.  If you coach women's college basketball or score 25 a night in the Italian league, you're in the Hall.  The Sickness could retire tomorrow, and he'd be in the Hall, thanks to his international contributions.  It's, to be kind, an inclusive Hall.  But if those guys don't get in, Horry can't get in.  

2)The He Can't Lose Factor

And I'm not talking about the rings.  Not yet. I mean, Horry has never been one of the top three players on his own team, and thusly, it is almost impossible for him to suck enough for moron broadcasters to notice.

Think about it.  For mediocre/crappy players, televised games are a pretty sweet deal.  The talking doofuses only pay attention to the big names.  For the Spurs, the only people that can have a shitty night and the announcers will notice is Tim, Tony, or Manu.  Those guys are all stars, established players.   If Tim has a game where he gets 7 pts on 3-18 shooting, they notice.  If Tony has 14 turnovers, they notice.  If Horry goes 0-4 with 0 pts and 1 reb, they will not notice.  Sure, we'll notice, but we're dorks.  And yes, Stephen A. Smith notices when Rasho plays poorly, but Stephen A. Smith is a psychopath.

The only way Robert can be noticed for playing spectacularly awful is A) if it's a really prolonged stretch, like say, the '03 playoffs for the Lakers when he missed like 814 three-pointers in a row or B) if he has a game where he goes 1 for 15.  Scenario B will never happen because he won't ever get 15 shots.  

But when he has a game where he gets 15 and 7, boy howdy do people notice.  All of a sudden he's the x-factor, the key to the game, the guy who made the difference, and all the other stupid shit announcers say.  It's a double standard that probably annoys the stars who have to produce every single night to not be criticized, but I'm guessing the mansions and cars and never-ending assembly line of tail eases their pain somewhat.
Anyway, my point is if you're not important enough for announcers to point out to everyone that you really sucked tonight, then you're not a Hall of Famer.

3) "But he's soooo money, baby!" factor.  Yes, Robert has hit some big threes in the playoffs.  So did Larry Bird and Reggie Miller.  The difference is that they also played very well in 90% of the other games they were involved in.

Somehow, Robert summons the energy to improve upon his staggering 7.5/5.0 regular season numbers to put up 9.0/6.1 per in the playoffs.  So his scoring goes up by 25%, and his rebounding goes up by 21%.  Or something.  I'm bad at math.
But what do these numbers mean?  What does clutch mean?  Yes, he seems to play better in the important games.  But since when does 9 and 6 a Hall of Famer make?  How long would the Spurs last this postseason if Timmy averaged 9 and 6?  Not long, methinks.

Playoff games have a funny way of skewing perceptions.  Because the games matter more, people seem to remember those performances more so than regular season ones.  What do people remember more, Manu in Game 7 vs the Pistons, or Manu going for 48 at Phoenix?  The first one, obviously.  But which game did he play better?
How many regular season Michael Jordan moments do we remember vs his postseason moments?  

I'm gonna use baseball players to make my point because baseball is a more statistic oriented sport.  

When people think of clutch baseball players, they think of Derek Jeter.

Here's his career regular season batting average, on base average, and slugging percentage:

.314  .386  .461

Here's the playoff numbers:

.307  .379  .463

He's called clutch because while the stifling postseason pressure crumbles a lot of hitters to dust, his performance stays consistent.  Not better mind you, just consistent.  But people swear he gets better in October.

Now look at Alex Rodriguez's numbers.  Rodriguez has made quite a reputation for himself as a playoff choker.  

.307  .385  .577 Reg Season

.305  .393  .534 Postseason.

So Jeter, the guy with the 842 playoff OPS (On base + slugging)is money while A-Rod with the 927 playoff OPS sucks.  

But both those guys are Hall of Famers.  For more Horryesque examples, let's go to a couple of weak-hitting second basemen.

Mark Lemke played for the Braves for most of the 90s, and for most of his career, he might as well have been taking a wet noodle to the plate instead of a bat.  But he had some big playoff hits.

.246  .317  .324   641 Ops Reg Season

.272  .335  .353   688 Ops Postseason

So his numbers go from obscenely shitty in the reg season to just plain shitty in the playoffs.  But ladies and gentlemen, as we live and breathe, I swear to God some people on this planet would rather have Mark Lemke "in his prime" up with the game on the line in the playoffs than Alex Rodriguez.

Even a more Horry-like example is Miguel Cairo.  Check these numbers out!

.270  .318  .364   682 OPS   Reg Season

.328  .414  .459   873 OPS   Post

So his on base average goes up 30%, and his slugging goes up 26% in the playoffs.  This guy is as clutch as clutch gets, right?  The problem is that his 873 is still below A-Rod's 927, and I have heard absolutely nobody ever utter the phrase, "Man if that Miguel Cairo keeps up this postseason hitting, he's gonna be a Hall of Famer!"    

So excuse me if I think that just because a guy like Horry goes from bad to average in the playoffs, that he's not a clutch player or a Hall of Famer.
I'm sure most people who are otherwise intelligent think that Horry is a better playoff perfomer than David Robinson, but it's simply not true, and quite frankly, it's insulting to Robinson.  The next double-team Horry sees will be his first.  

To me, a clutch player is David Ortiz of the Red Sox.  Regular season 900 OPS, playoffs 935 (albeit with a small sample).  He goes from pretty good to very good.  

Manu Ginobili is a clutch player.  He took his all-star regular season numbers of the 04-05 season and vastly improved upon them in the playoffs, to historic levels, as Matthew points out.  

Robert Horry is just a guy who's been at the right place at the right time and hit some big shots, much like Steve Kerr.  He's got six rings because he played with O'Neal, Kobe, Hakeem, Tim, and Manu.  They didn't get their rings because they played with Robert Horry.

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