Robert Horry is clearly not a fan of Charles Barkley, and why should he be?
Horry was a starter on the “Clutch City” Houston Rockets championship teams of 1994 and 1995, but just before the start of the 1996-1997 season, he was traded to the Phoenix Suns so that the Rockets could have superstar big man Charles Barkley to team up with Hakeem Olajuwan and Clyde Drexler.
This team full of superstar players was never able to get by the Utah Jazz, and the Rockets have not won a championship since ’95. Horry, on the other hand, ended up having a lot of success after he left the Rockets. Before the end of the 1997 season, he was on the Los Angeles Lakers. During his time in L.A., Horry won three championships, and he won 2 more with the San Antonio Spurs.
Robert Horry clearly fared better than the Houston Rockets, but he still seems to be mad that he was traded from Houston to Phoenix for Barkley. He recently spoke to HuffPost Live, and he seemed to still be a little bit bitter about being traded.
“Now they bring in Barkley, a guy who doesn’t like to practice, a guy who doesn’t work hard… And you would have added us to the mix so it’s two vets and two young, we would’ve had a great team. But no, they think, ‘we’re going to bring in Charles.’ But hell you just realize Charles didn’t win anything in Phoenix, he didn’t win anything in Philly. And sometimes, you know, great players don’t make a great team better.”
Clearly, Horry was not happy about being traded. He is right though, and Charles did not make the Rockets better. With Horry, they won championships, but with Barkley, they won none. Robert is not saying that Charles is not a winner though, and he clarified that after being asked whether or not Charles Barkley is a winner.
“No, I wouldn’t say that. I would just say he brings a different element to a team. And sometimes you have too many chefs in the kitchen — think about it, you had Clyde, you had Dream, and then you had Charles — those are three scorers, and there’s only one basketball. Most teams only have 2 good scorers… and I think he was just too much for that team.”
Horry is definitely right; the Rockets needed more role players. To many scorers does not always work, and the Rockets found that out. If the Rockets had less superstars and more role players (like Horry) then they would have won more. I agree with Horry on this topic.
One topic I do not agree with Horry on is him saying that Barkley did not try hard. Barkley played his butt of every night, and he played very hard for the entire time he was in the game.
