Why isn't Robert Horry in the HoF?

[rand]

I liked Horry, but what a ridiculous premise. I seriously question if the people who voted yes ever watched him play or know anything about basketball.

I seriously question how stupid you'd have to be to seriously question that.

[Egg Nog]

Absolutely shocked that 1 out of 4 people think Robert Horry should be in the hall of fame.

Robert Horry was a slightly-above-average rotation player in the NBA.

There are people shouting "Bosh never would've made it if he had been in the west" and "it's too easy to get in" when they see greats like Bobby Jones make it...and you're telling me ONE OF FOUR people think Robert Horry should make it?

Rangz brigade clearly out in full force. I swear if Patrick McCaw had retired after his 3rd title these guys would've had him on the first ballot.

[Wolveswin]

Well, many fans agree with you, but the purpose of the HOF is to tell the story of basketball history to otherwise ignorant future generations, so using a barometer of only including guys you already know plenty about doesn't really fit with what a Hall of Fame does.

HOF can tell the story of basketball without diluting what it means as a player to be accepted as a player into HOF.

No, it literally can't. These are two different purposes, and there's absolutely no reason to think you can optimize for both simultaneously.

This isn't me saying "So Horry should be in the Hall" because I voted no, but the HOF is not a GOAT list, it's a physical museum that charges for admission and does things like advertising that it's a great place for student trips and children's birthday parties.

And you literally think they can’t have simultaneously their physical hall of tourist attraction AND have their hall of basketball fame? Please.

Players being voted in should be elite (and this has nothing to do with Horry). Generational talent, the most rarefied air of which a player can be voted into. Watering it down (not the tourist attraction) does no one a good service.

[D.Brasco]

Robert GOATY

[OdomFan]

He's not a Hall of Famer. If anything the hall of fame should have some other kinda way to honor these kinda level of players. Either start honoring a group of the core players together, or idk.

[dhsilv2]

I don't think it is an insult to Horry to feel that he should not be in the HOF.

Horry averaged 7/5/2 ppg/rpg/apg for his career. His minutes ticked up slightly in the playoffs, boosting him to 8/6/2 in the postseason. Obviously, he proved to be capable of hitting clutch shots. Since this is an exercise in comparing his performance to that of others who played the game, a natural question would ask why he was not able to contribute more overall during the regular season and during playoff games in general? What was there about his game that stopped him from contributing at a level more typical of HOF players like 20/10/5? Or even 15/8/3?

That is not to disparage Horry. Rather, it is an attempt to understand why it was that he was capable of significant occasional clutch contributions, but not a high level of sustained contribution when compared to so many other individuals.

If Horry was in the HOF, would it not make sense to also induct all/most of his team mates from his championship teams who made significantly greater overall contributions to the championships by virtue of their greater scoring, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, etc? Certainly Horry depended as much on their contributions as they did on his.

I think the HOF is recognition for a career of success, not a career of "good" with flashes of clutch brilliance. It would make sense to me for the HOF to recognize Horry's clutch playoff shots (not unlike baseball recognizing Don Larsen's World Series perfect game) without enshrining him into the HOF. The Hall of Fame is for star players and Horry, though important, was virtually never a star on any team.

As someone else pointed out, horry was at least 3rd in playoff WS for 5 NBA titles.

94 - Horry was pretty clearly the 2nd best player on the team. 5.0 BPM, .152 PER and 16.7 PER all second on the team.
95 - Horry was the clear 3rd guy on this team and he's closer to hakeem and Drexler than many remember. 4.6 BPM, .142 WS/48 these are both VERY close to being 2nd and then 16.2 PER, he was a low usage guy who's role was larger on defense.
00 - here Rice and Horry in stats are closer but Horry has the better metrics. Horry also being clearly the better defender than Rice at that point. 3rd again after the two stars
02 - Again the clear 3rd guy here in this playoff run. Another amazing BPM 4.8, solid .153 WS/48 and PER always grades him low due again to his usage.
05 - Often forgotten but Parker wasn't very good in the playoffs. Horry however was outstanding. 3rd in WS and VORP. 7.6 BPM, .199 WS/48 and 17.9 PER, those are allstar metrics.

That's 5 titles where everyone who contributed more than Horry are for sure going to the hall of fame. 2001 and 2007 are the only years someone who's not a clear cut hall guy added more value in the playoffs. There you have Michael Finley and Derk Fisher was clear better contributions, not hall guys but really good players at their absolute peak so they had some value add there for sure.

In short, that wouldn't expand the hall to allow other guys in. Being a top 3 guy in terms of playoff contribution for 5 titles is an extremely small list of players in nba history.

[dhsilv2]

Absolutely shocked that 1 out of 4 people think Robert Horry should be in the hall of fame.

Robert Horry was a slightly-above-average rotation player in the NBA.

There are people shouting "Bosh never would've made it if he had been in the west" and "it's too easy to get in" when they see greats like Bobby Jones make it...and you're telling me ONE OF FOUR people think Robert Horry should make it?

Rangz brigade clearly out in full force. I swear if Patrick McCaw had retired after his 3rd title these guys would've had him on the first ballot.

A top 3 player in the playoffs for 5 title teams...that's slightly-above-average ROTATION, not starter, ROTATION player?

[dhsilv2]

HOF can tell the story of basketball without diluting what it means as a player to be accepted as a player into HOF.

No, it literally can't. These are two different purposes, and there's absolutely no reason to think you can optimize for both simultaneously.

This isn't me saying "So Horry should be in the Hall" because I voted no, but the HOF is not a GOAT list, it's a physical museum that charges for admission and does things like advertising that it's a great place for student trips and children's birthday parties.

And you literally think they can’t have simultaneously their physical hall of tourist attraction AND have their hall of basketball fame? Please.

Players being voted in should be elite (and this has nothing to do with Horry). Generational talent, the most rarefied air of which a player can be voted into. Watering it down (not the tourist attraction) does no one a good service.

So we do what 25 all time guys make it? And why? Why are you right and the hall is wrong?

[Egg Nog]

Absolutely shocked that 1 out of 4 people think Robert Horry should be in the hall of fame.

Robert Horry was a slightly-above-average rotation player in the NBA.

There are people shouting "Bosh never would've made it if he had been in the west" and "it's too easy to get in" when they see greats like Bobby Jones make it...and you're telling me ONE OF FOUR people think Robert Horry should make it?

Rangz brigade clearly out in full force. I swear if Patrick McCaw had retired after his 3rd title these guys would've had him on the first ballot.

A top 3 player in the playoffs for 5 title teams...that's slightly-above-average ROTATION, not starter, ROTATION player?

Are starters not rotation players? I just mean he was above average for a guy who played real minutes...but not much more than that. Horry wasn't even close to an all-star.

[Wolveswin]

No, it literally can't. These are two different purposes, and there's absolutely no reason to think you can optimize for both simultaneously.

This isn't me saying "So Horry should be in the Hall" because I voted no, but the HOF is not a GOAT list, it's a physical museum that charges for admission and does things like advertising that it's a great place for student trips and children's birthday parties.

And you literally think they can’t have simultaneously their physical hall of tourist attraction AND have their hall of basketball fame? Please.

Players being voted in should be elite (and this has nothing to do with Horry). Generational talent, the most rarefied air of which a player can be voted into. Watering it down (not the tourist attraction) does no one a good service.

So we do what 25 all time guys make it? And why? Why are you right and the hall is wrong?

Ask the hall why they have standards are watered down. I would like to know too.

[dhsilv2]

Absolutely shocked that 1 out of 4 people think Robert Horry should be in the hall of fame.

Robert Horry was a slightly-above-average rotation player in the NBA.

There are people shouting "Bosh never would've made it if he had been in the west" and "it's too easy to get in" when they see greats like Bobby Jones make it...and you're telling me ONE OF FOUR people think Robert Horry should make it?

Rangz brigade clearly out in full force. I swear if Patrick McCaw had retired after his 3rd title these guys would've had him on the first ballot.

A top 3 player in the playoffs for 5 title teams...that's slightly-above-average ROTATION, not starter, ROTATION player?

Are starters not rotation players? I just mean he was above average for a guy who played real minutes...but not much more than that. Horry wasn't even close to an all-star.

A starter is a rotation player, but there are generally 8-9 rotation players on a team and even in the playoffs it's 7 with almost always an 8th guy in mix.

But with an 8 man rotation there are 240 rotation players in the nba any given year (216 when Horry started). You can't tell me Horry wasn't a top 50 player in the nba during his prime years. That's FAR from "slightly better".

If you were just to talk about the regular season, maybe you're right. He was really good in 94-96, 98, and 00 and 02 in the regular season. But not allstar level, during the season.

But unlike 99% of nba players, Horry consistently got better in the playoffs, most of the time, a LOT better. Maybe you're not one of these guys that craps on players for not stepping up in the playoffs, but a LOT of people do that constantly. Well, if Harden gets crap for his playoff short comings lets give Horry credit for his success. Give me anyone not in the hall of fame who was top 3 in WS or VORP for 5 NBA finals teams, not even champs just 5 finals teams in their career. Doing that takes being REALLY good AND being good a long time.

I'm not going to fight for Horry being in the hall of fame. But we can't let ourselves underrate REALLY good players like Horry because they were top 50 players for a decade place and lump them in with being "slight above average rotation" players. Horry was highly valuable and extremely hard to replace to the point if he were on different teams I'd venture to guess at least 4 of those 7 titles wouldn't have happened. And I want to stress this, it isn't because he hit all those clutch shots either. It's his defense, it's the spacing he created, and it was his understand of his role and how to maximize it.

We only have shooting chart data back to 97 but look at Horry's shot selection in the playoffs.

0-3 22.9%
3-10 10.7%
10-16 6.1%
16-3P 12.6%
3P 47.7%

Horry was even ahead of his time with his shot selection, while today that 12.6% long 2's would drop, that's an extremely modern shot selection. And more importantly, as we have learned more and more about basketball through analytics he's the prototype of guy's who's impact is higher than their box score metrics indicate. But lets not dismiss his box score stats.

Everyone wants to list points and assists and rebounds. And those aren't going to wow you. But keep in mind he also from 93-05 played about 31 minutes a game had 1.3 turnovers per game, 3.1 personal fouls, 1.3 steals, 0.9 blocks, and was a guy who could switch onto anyone 1-5 as well as any modern guy outside of Giannis, Draymond or say a younger Lebron. He was also a heady off ball defensive rotator. No, maybe he wasn't all nba defensive level but he really wasn't far off.

But wait, remember this is maybe the slowest paced 13 years in NBA history. So the advanced stats?

BPM - 3.9 BPM over 198 playoff games over this stretch. That would have put him last year among qualifying players tied for 19th ahead of Paul George, Zach Lavine, Julius Randle,Jason Tatum, and Trae Young for context on how good that is. And the great thing about BPM is that it seems to capture things that impact winning while WS and PER have different biases (WS loves TS% and PER loves high usage). And to that point a .131 WS/48 (58th last season, Beal, Batum, Isaih STeward, Robin Lopez, Vucevic, Jamal Burray, TJ McConnell level) and PER at 14.8...about league average. But again...these are PLAYOFF metrics where generally if you're not MJ or Duncan you'll drop off not rise up.

TL/DR - This guy was a REALLY good player who was a consistent difference maker in the playoffs and who was virtually irreplaceable for multiple title teams. He might not have been an allstar and he might not be worthy of the hall, but he wasn't slightly above average. At his best he was an average starter for a nba champion and that's pretty impressive and rare.

[dhsilv2]

And you literally think they can’t have simultaneously their physical hall of tourist attraction AND have their hall of basketball fame? Please.

Players being voted in should be elite (and this has nothing to do with Horry). Generational talent, the most rarefied air of which a player can be voted into. Watering it down (not the tourist attraction) does no one a good service.

So we do what 25 all time guys make it? And why? Why are you right and the hall is wrong?

Ask the hall why they have standards are watered down. I would like to know too.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball.

So again, why is your criteria better when your criteria wouldn't meet their mission?

edit more direct quote

Located in Springfield, Massachusetts, the city where basketball was born, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting, preserving and celebrating the game of basketball at every level – men and women, amateur and professional players, coaches and contributors, both domestically and internationally. The Hall of Fame museum is home to more than 400 inductees and over 40,000 square feet of basketball history. Nearly 200,000 people visit the Hall of Fame museum each year to learn about the game, experience the interactive exhibits and test their skills on the Jerry Colangelo "Court of Dreams." Best known for its annual marquee Enshrinement Ceremony honoring the game’s elite, the Hall of Fame also operates over 70 high school and collegiate competitions annually throughout the country and abroad.

[Wolveswin]

So we do what 25 all time guys make it? And why? Why are you right and the hall is wrong?

Ask the hall why they have standards are watered down. I would like to know too.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball.

So again, why is your criteria better when your criteria wouldn't meet their mission?

edit more direct quote

Located in Springfield, Massachusetts, the city where basketball was born, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting, preserving and celebrating the game of basketball at every level – men and women, amateur and professional players, coaches and contributors, both domestically and internationally. The Hall of Fame museum is home to more than 400 inductees and over 40,000 square feet of basketball history. Nearly 200,000 people visit the Hall of Fame museum each year to learn about the game, experience the interactive exhibits and test their skills on the Jerry Colangelo "Court of Dreams." Best known for its annual marquee Enshrinement Ceremony honoring the game’s elite, the Hall of Fame also operates over 70 high school and collegiate competitions annually throughout the country and abroad.

Um. And?

[dhsilv2]

Ask the hall why they have standards are watered down. I would like to know too.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball.

So again, why is your criteria better when your criteria wouldn't meet their mission?

edit more direct quote

Located in Springfield, Massachusetts, the city where basketball was born, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting, preserving and celebrating the game of basketball at every level – men and women, amateur and professional players, coaches and contributors, both domestically and internationally. The Hall of Fame museum is home to more than 400 inductees and over 40,000 square feet of basketball history. Nearly 200,000 people visit the Hall of Fame museum each year to learn about the game, experience the interactive exhibits and test their skills on the Jerry Colangelo "Court of Dreams." Best known for its annual marquee Enshrinement Ceremony honoring the game’s elite, the Hall of Fame also operates over 70 high school and collegiate competitions annually throughout the country and abroad.

Um. And?

I'm still waiting for your idea of what the criteria for the hall is. The hall seems to want to tell the story of basketball at all levels.

[Wolveswin]

So again, why is your criteria better when your criteria wouldn't meet their mission?

edit more direct quote

Um. And?

I'm still waiting for your idea of what the criteria for the hall is. The hall seems to want to tell the story of basketball at all levels.

As they should. I am still waiting for you to tell me why they can’t tell a story of basketball that is separate from which players are determined HOF players. They are NOT one and the same. Why do you need to weave these together?

[Ice Trae]

[DoItALL9]

The original stretch 4 should certainly be in the Hall of Fame

Sent from my LM-G710 using RealGM mobile app

[Doctor MJ]

HOF can tell the story of basketball without diluting what it means as a player to be accepted as a player into HOF.

No, it literally can't. These are two different purposes, and there's absolutely no reason to think you can optimize for both simultaneously.

This isn't me saying "So Horry should be in the Hall" because I voted no, but the HOF is not a GOAT list, it's a physical museum that charges for admission and does things like advertising that it's a great place for student trips and children's birthday parties.

And you literally think they can’t have simultaneously their physical hall of tourist attraction AND have their hall of basketball fame? Please.

Players being voted in should be elite (and this has nothing to do with Horry). Generational talent, the most rarefied air of which a player can be voted into. Watering it down (not the tourist attraction) does no one a good service.

There's so much you're assuming in the words you're using. Look at the way you just separated "hall of tourist attraction" and "hall of basketball fame" with the clear implication that you think a "hall of basketball fame" is synonymous with an elite GOAT list. It isn't.

Hall of Fames were not invented for sports or competitions - they are museums - and note that "fame" doesn't mean "competitive greatness".

Let's also note that it is called the basketball HOF, not the NBA. The NBA is just the modern cherry-on-top of the ice cream sundae that is the phenomenon of basketball, and quite a lot of the stuff they focus on is about how the game rose to become what it has...which for the most part really isn't about individual players. The individual players are focused on because they help communicate the story of basketball, not because it was deemed of vital importance to create a super-elite list of basketball players.

So it's not a matter of whether they can achieve your notion of a GOAT list and sell tickets at the same time, it's a matter that there is no actual reason for them to be focusing on your GOAT list approach at all as if it is a goal, and thus the players they select are bound to disagree with your notions of elite purity.

Now, as I say all that: It's not just you that's thinking like this, and some who think similar to you probably have HOF votes. I don't mean to deny that there's been actual drift in people's understanding of what the priority of the HOF is, because if that hadn't occurred, you wouldn't be advocating for what you are.

What I object to though is the umbrage that people take at the idea that it's effectively ruining the HOF to include players below a certain threshold of greatness that basically looks to avoid exposing people to knowledge that's most in danger of being forgotten. I've said it before and I've said it again:

If you don't know tons about basketball history to the point that you can have a knowledgeable opinion about the vast majority of the people in the Hall, then you shouldn't be putting yourself out there as the judge of what deserves to pass through these gates, you should be looking to learn.

That's what the Hall is there for, and that's why I'm telling you you've missed the point.

[Doctor MJ]

As they should. I am still waiting for you to tell me why they can’t tell a story of basketball that is separate from which players are determined HOF players. They are NOT one and the same. Why do you need to weave these together?

But they are the same within the concept of the Hall of Fame. These are museums that focus on the idea of celebrating history using specific people's lives as a starting point. The weaving, in other words, was the always the intent.

[Doctor MJ]

So we do what 25 all time guys make it? And why? Why are you right and the hall is wrong?

Ask the hall why they have standards are watered down. I would like to know too.

You didn't answer his question.
You didn't give a rebuttal.
All you did was re-assert that you were right and they were wrong.

Maybe stop with the pithy comebacks, and start reflecting on why you're responding like this instead of breaking your reasoning into more granular details when you're requested to do so.