Robert Horry was one of the more beloved role players in the history of the Los Angeles Lakers. He hit some of the biggest game-winning and game-clinching shots in team history, including, of course, his dagger at the buzzer of Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference finals against the Sacramento Kings.
Neither the Kings nor the city of Sacramento has gotten over that 3-pointer, even 20 years later. But Horry’s contributions to the early 2000s Lakers went far beyond shots like that.
He is also one of the luckiest players in NBA history. He won multiple rings with three teams: the Lakers, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs. In doing so, he played with Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Tim Duncan, probably the three best big men of the last 30 years.
On a recent episode of the “All The Smoke” podcast, Horry may have irked some Lakers fans when he said Olajuwon, not O’Neal, was the best big man he ever played with (h/t Lakers Nation).
Robert Horry is taking Hakeem over Shaq and Timmy.
Hard to argue with a guy that won rings with all three of them
New episode of #AllTheSmoke with @RKHorry drops on Thursday. 💨 pic.twitter.com/49BKPmfoFE
— SHOWTIME Basketball (@shobasketball) May 30, 2023
“All the other teams I played for, the one common denominator was great big men. Think about it, Shaq, Tim Duncan. And if you said right now, name the top five big men, I played with three of them… Dream No. 1 by far. We don’t like to, nobody want to talk about it. I think you have these guys who are quiet. Think about it. Dream, he’s a really quiet guy, you can’t get him to do much, to say much. So we kind of veer away from him. We don’t talk about him, but to me, if you look at what he put together. Defensive player of the year, MVP in one season. All-time leading shot blocker. Those things that you look at his history and what he’s done for the game and where he, how he started the game. This dude didn’t play basketball growing up. Went to (University of Houston) where they wasn’t, think about it, we all went to college where they going to teach you. U of H they just roll the ball out there and he went to work. So I think with his body of work was just incredible. And he’s just a good dude, too, man. That’s what you have to think about. A good dude.”
An argument could be made that Olajuwon was O’Neal’s equal when the former was at his peak in the mid-1990s. However, Olajuwon’s prime lasted just a few years, while O’Neal was in his prime for up to a full decade.
In the end, it is somewhat hard to compare the two. While O’Neal was the ultimate power player and likely one of the three greatest physical specimens in basketball history, Olajuwon was arguably the most skilled center ever, and his post moves, ball fakes and footwork were something to behold.
