Despite winning championships with the San Antonio Spurs, Robert Horry unintentionally earned much hate from Spurs fans after messing with the franchise's biggest idol.
A couple of years ago, the 7x NBA champion talked about two former teammates, Hakeem Olajuwon and Tim Duncan. He picked between the two legends, going with the Houston Rockets icon, saying he was 20 times better than Duncan. During an old appearance on ESPN's The Jump, Horry said:
"They had nobody that could guard Dream [Olajuwon's nickname]. They had nobody that could guard Dream. I'm gonna say that twice because Dream was just that dominant. When we played San Antonio one time, Tim was killing me on the block, and [then-Lakers coach] Phil [Jackson] refused to double-team Tim to get the ball out of his hands. And Dream is 20 times better than Tim Duncan."
Four years later, the former power forward/small forward revealed that those comments didn't sit well with Spurs fans. On his 'Big Shot Bob' podcast, Horry said he received death threats after making those remarks. To make things worse, right after that, he had to attend an event in San Antonio.
“People were up in arms, it was crazy. I was getting death threats. The crazy part is my wife and I had to do an appearance in San Antonio at this event, and everybody was looking at me like this — [crosses arms with blank expression].”
As Robert said, Tim Duncan is a God in San Antonio, which means fans will be ready to defend him against anybody. Sadly, Horry learned that the hard way. People sometimes take things too seriously, including sports.
This is not bigger than anybody's life, and it's a shame that some folks don't understand that. Debates will always occur in the league; we have the never-ending GOAT debate, fans argue about the best player in the league, the best defender, the best team of all time, and more.
Just because somebody has a different opinion on something doesn't mean they don't deserve to live. Still, some people need to learn that and stop taking things that seriously.
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