[videos] Robert Horry -where Big Shot REALLY started

cuneo77 · Mar 26, 2014

mdrowe00 said: ↑

It's always kind of fun to go back and revisit something like this...
...especially considering what we know now about how things worked out.

I remember there being some argument as to whether or not the Rockets could even afford to keep Sam Cassell and Robert Horry at the time. They were the two youngest, and arguably the most integral, parts of the Rockets' two-title run of that time.

They were both also due potentially massive pay raises. And with the Rockets losing to Seattle in the 1996 playoffs, it seemed to be a perfect confluence of circumstances which ultimately seemed to validate significant change in the Rockets' lineup if they were ever going to beat the Sonics.

Both Cassell and Horry, for all of the big moments they had, were still largely inconsistent, and hadn't grown into the players that their talent suggested yet, at least from management's perspective.

And as blasphemous as it may seem now, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler weren't quite ready to surrender a lot of the on-court responsibilities to either Cassell or Horry.

I recall Sam Cassell, in particular, was always angling for a larger and more definitive role in the Rockets' offense. Kenny Smith and Sam Cassell managed to co-exist remarkably well, but once Smith started his decline, Cassell probably assumed that the starting point guard duties belonged to him by default. Sam was always extremely competitive, so his dissatisfaction with his role and minutes ebbed and flowed, but he seemed to feel that he had earned the right to be the teams' point guard of the future.

The 1995-1996 Rockets were injury-riddled all season, and really couldn't find themselves at all because of so much line-up inconsistency, despite beating Magic Johnson's last hurrah as a Los Angeles Laker (playing "point-power-forward" for want of a better term...a weird sort of precursor to Lebron James) fairly easily.

I remember Magic, incidentally, when interviewed by someone after that first-round series, saying he had flashbacks of what he was used to seeing on fast breaks―Michael Cooper and James Worthy and Byron Scott instead of Eddie Jones or Sedale Threatt or Elden Campbell. It wasn't the same team as his Showtime Lakers, and he wasn't the same player, in essence.

The interesting thing about pro sports though, is the weirdness of time...how much of it and how little of it you have at the same time.

When there's an opportunity to win (and for the Rockets then, winning meant winning championships), the future is very much now. The Rockets (and Rudy Tomjonovich) were able to pull that balancing act of mixing young energy with veteran savvy off very well.

But even in light of two consecutive championships, not convincingly enough to pass along to the two youngest Rockets the torch of leadership, it seemed.
Also, Les Alexander had just bought the team, and may have been under the impression (especially with how the trade for Clyde Drexler worked out), that all he ever needed to do was make a trade for a big-name player to keep the Rockets in contention. Alexander did ultimately take those positions based on what Carroll Dawson thought was best.

There was also the stink about some inappropriate relations between Robert Horry and Calvin Murphy’s daughter, and the implication because of Murphy’s considerable influence within the organization that he had something to do with getting Robert Horry traded, in particular.

I’ve always held that, all things being equal, that you don’t trade 10 years away for two. And for all of the hand-wringing going on about the Sonics, the Rockets basically made a trade to beat one team, and had mortgaged the future , after a fashion, in order to do it.

Charles Barkley was not only a hall-of-fame player. He was even rarer still…he was a unique player. He had post-up skills like bigger men, and ball-handling skills like guards, and was only about 6’4” (listed as 6’6”). But he was, as we discovered, also not long for the NBA-world. The chance he brought with him to win a title faded away as quickly as his arrival sparked optimism. And usually, in any trade, you want to wind up with the best player in the exchange. And Barkley even took less money initially, expecting to be compensated later, to help the Rockets financially (one of the augurs against re-signing Horry and/or Cassell)….

Hindsight is always 20/20. My preference at the time was to try to find a way to keep the team we had together. We’d watched them find ways to win against near-impossible odds so much, I thought they deserved a chance to figure things out. And I always liked Sam and Robert.

The only “overspending” you could possibly do in the pros, is to overspend on the “right now”...

…and sometimes the right now takes a bigger hold of you then just “right”.

Still and all, that trade was essentially a lateral move. And if the exact same set of circumstances existed, I can’t imagine the Rockets not taking it again.

The Rockets were swinging for the fences…
…so there’s as much of a chance of striking out as there is of knocking one out of the park.

How'd Satchel Paige say it...?

"...You pays yo' money and you takes yo' chances..."
Click to expand...

we pulled the trade to get barkley to beat seattle.97 team was oneof my favorites,had the bearhug not happen who knows maybe we would have 3..but i always remember,i OT was a free agent, why not bring him back for the 96 season?

newAge_Rockets · Mar 26, 2014

That NBA on NBC theme! So good.

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[videos] Robert Horry -where Big Shot REALLY started

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