Robert Horry says the new guys beat the old guys!

horry ticked some people off with these comments. what do you think about them? ARE today's athletes so much better than the athletes of just 20-25 years ago?

CLEVELAND – The seventh championship ring will go with the rest of them inside Robert Horry's house, unceremoniously dropped into a bathroom drawer.

"That way, they can all stay together," he said Wednesday.

Horry is an authority on all things NBA championships, and Big Shot Bob had a message about his San Antonio Spurs for the great Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics teams of the 1980s.

"We would beat them," he boasted.

Horry punctuated his proclamation with a laugh, understanding there was no harm stirring it up with San Antonio on the brink of sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA finals. Horry has had his moments in this series, including five blocked shots in Game 2. He isn't sure if he'll be back for a 16th season, but if he does, he'll return to a Spurs team that'll be the favorite to be the first to repeat champion since Horry's Shaq-Kobe Lakers won three straight titles.

"No disrespect to the guys back in the 80's and the 70's, but the guys now are so much better than those guys," Horry said. "I don't care what they say. If you look at old films, guys only went right. They turned and kept it in their right hand. Look at the things LeBron (James) can do, Tim (Duncan) can do, Tony (Parker) can do, Manu (Ginobili) can do. Little (Daniel) Gibson over there. There's no way you can compare those guys. We watched what they did and expanded on that."

Horry is right about watching the games in the 60's and early 70's, when the players favored one hand and dribbled with heads down. But the 80's? When Magic played the point? Dennis Johnson? Come on, Rob. And Daniel Gibson is doing something that no one else did in the 80's? What, make a few jumpers over two weeks of his life?

Sorry, but the 80's had far more complete players. They're bigger, faster and more athletic now, but not always better. Before expansion and salary caps, the talent wasn't so spread out. You could have three and four great players on a team for years, and that's hard to do now.

Horry's old teammate with the Lakers, Derek Fisher, was in Cleveland to talk about an NBA Players Association initiative to feed one million people in Africa this summer. Yet, he had to sigh and make a concession about who truly had dominated the decade. San Antonio's four titles in nine years, the staying power of three in the past five, has sold Fisher on the Spurs.

"I hate to say it, but they're surpassing us," said Fisher, whose Jazz lost to San Antonio in the Western Conference finals. "They have become the class of the league."

Most agree that these Spurs are the best of San Antonio's four championship teams, and yet Horry doesn't believe they measure with the Lakers' 2001 title winner. "If I had to pick one team, it would be (2001) when we swept everyone except for Philly," Horry said. "That team was pretty awesome. It was like a locomotive coming through with no brakes."

Eventually, L.A. crashed. San Antonio has a selfless star in Tim Duncan who, at 31, has a chance to be the cornerstone of more championships. Parker and Ginobili understand they are complementary parts and embrace Duncan's greatness. And Horry said he never sees his Spurs teammates wearing rings. They never talk about titles, about where they fit into history. And most of all, there's never even a suggestion jealousy over the salary or stature of the superstar.

"Money hurt that (Lakers) team," Horry said. "It came down to this guy wanted this much money, that guy wanted this much money. Those two guys (Shaq and Kobe) wanted to be the top dog and forgot about the other guys. It all boiled down to money. Money is the root of all evil sometimes.

"Sometimes you can't see the forest through the trees. They didn't win that championship against Detroit (in 2004), and they said, 'OK, (Karl) Malone you're injured, bye. (Gary) Payton, you're too old, bye. Shaq, you want too much money, bye.' "

Adrian Wojnarowski is the national NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Send Adrian a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

in horry's defense, he's been around a long time, and does know a thing or 2 about championships. still, his comments are a little . . . surpising to say the least. 🙂

todays athletes are more athletic. That is they are bigger, stronger, faster, have better technology and medicine for training and recovering from injury. This does not make them more skilled though.

but if skills are equal, doesn't that mean the advantage goes to bigger and stronger?

one thing that some of the older guys MAY have had that the new guys lack is more drive. less money back then, i think more played because they LOVED the sport. no pampering, not as much whining it seems. while not as 'strong' as today's athletes, i think it is very possible the older guys were . . . tougher, if that makes sense. 😬

I could have sworn I posted in this thread already.... 😕

Originally posted by leonidas
but if skills are equal, doesn't that mean the advantage goes to bigger and stronger?

one thing that some of the older guys MAY have had that the new guys lack is more drive. less money back then, i think more played because they LOVED the sport. no pampering, not as much whining it seems. while not as 'strong' as today's athletes, i think it is very possible the older guys were . . . tougher, if that makes sense. 😬

yea i get what you are saying, they were maybe stronger mentally. Im not saying skills are equal though. Some old timers had more skills some had less. The big difference I think is they had to rely on their pure skills more back then because they couldnt make up for it as much with pure athleticism like some people can now.

Originally posted by Lord Evolution
I could have sworn I posted in this thread already.... 😕

😂

i mentioned the article in a different thread, but thought some might be interested in reading the actual article itself. 🙂

or it's the alzheimer's . . . i can never really, myself. 😬

Originally posted by forumcrew
yea i get what you are saying, they were maybe stronger mentally. Im not saying skills are equal though. Some old timers had more skills some had less. The big difference I think is they had to rely on their pure skills more back then because they couldnt make up for it as much with pure athleticism like some people can now.

that actually makes some sense to me. it's an interesting point that i don't think i've heard before. i find it very hard to say whether horry is right or wrong. we get so accustomed to thinking the past was 'better' than the way things are now, and we idolize the great players so much that i think we lose perspective at times.

i won't go so far as to say the spurs would beat the lakers and celts of the 80s, but i think it would be a lot closer than most likely do.

The only thing that bugs me about that statement Horry made is by saying Gibson is doing stuff those guys in the past couldn't do.

Originally posted by leonidas
horry ticked some people off with these comments. what do you think about them? ARE today's athletes so much better than the athletes of just 20-25 years ago?

in horry's defense, he's been around a long time, and does know a thing or 2 about championships. still, his comments are a little . . . surpising to say the least. 🙂

I noticed how he never mentioned Mikey and the boys. 🙂

Originally posted by BobbyD
I noticed how he never mentioned Mikey and the boys. 🙂

neither did horry. 😉

Originally posted by leonidas
neither did horry. 😉

That's my point. 😕

yeah, i found that odd as well. 😬 i think he was referring to the early 80s teams only? 😕

Originally posted by leonidas
yeah, i found that odd as well. 😬 i think he was referring to the early 80s teams only? 😕

Do you think he was afraid to make such a bold statement? And then have all of basketball world questioning his claim?

Depends on the athletes and the sport. You have John Madden saying that the '85 Bears could beat any of today's teams, and Terry Bradshaw issuing similar statements about his 70's Steelers teams. Then guys like Horry saying that there's a definite gap.

No doubt there's better training and enhancement drugs (don't kid yourselves kids) in all sports. But the numbers don't add up. Free throw percentages are at catastophic lows currently. Larry Bird's 3-point percentages pwn the crap out of most of today's elite bombers. Hell, we can still watch footage of a young Magic Johnson and be awed by his ball-handling and passing skills.

The NBA probably DOES have more individual talent. Ball handling, driving the lane, etc. But don't tell me that in the current offensive drought (yes, offense is another category lacking compared to a decade or two ago) in the NBA we have players that passed and shot as well as the great Laker or Celtic teams. The mid-range jumper has all but disappeared in the game...and even stars like Lebron are evidence of this.

Could the Spurs have beaten those teams? Sure. But they also would've been in for a dogfight.

...

As for other sports where steroids play a bigger role (baseball, football) it's harder to compare because there's a bigger gap in the athletes. A 60's football team would get steamrolled due to the sheer size of linemen these days, even if certain stars and skill players had the same skill levels. Lynn Swann, for example, could play today, but the Steel Curtain D-line would likely just be average....certainly not a dynasty-building, fear-inspiring war machine.

And it's hard to watch Babe Ruth swing a bat and imagine that he'd be putting up legendary numbers in today's game. Some, like Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente (probably the most "complete" players seen in the game until the modern era) could certainly play today. Same with pitchers. But a lot of them would get played off the field, pitchers and batters alike. Nolan Ryan could consistently hit high 90's throughout his career, and his breaking pitches broke as much as anyone's...so 80's player or not, the dude could deal. You can't argue with that kind of statistical dogma. But there's definitely been a trend toward bigger and faster, and the percentages of pitchers who can pitch into the 90's on the gun is a lot higher than it once was.

Well said, Digi.

The NBA probably DOES have more individual talent. Ball handling, driving the lane, etc. But don't tell me that in the current offensive drought (yes, offense is another category lacking compared to a decade or two ago) in the NBA we have players that passed and shot as well as the great Laker or Celtic teams. The mid-range jumper has all but disappeared in the game...and even stars like Lebron are evidence of this.

Offensive drought? No. They actually play defense now, albeit still a small amount.

Originally posted by RocasAtoll

Offensive drought? No. They actually play defense now, albeit still a small amount.

So did Jordan, Magic, Kareem. Hell, Wilt did too....he led the league in blocks a ridiculous number of times. But they also managed to win games that were more interesting than 75-70.

The Spurs play defense. But the league is in an offensive drought. Big difference between the two. Average scores aren't all due to defensive adaptations.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
So did Jordan, Magic, Kareem. Hell, Wilt did too....he led the league in blocks a ridiculous number of times. But they also managed to win games that were more interesting than 75-70.

The Spurs play defense. But the league is in an offensive drought. Big difference between the two. Average scores aren't all due to defensive adaptations.

In general. In old games you can see where they just don't play defense right and it leaves the other man wide open. Blocks is not what I'm talking about; just basic defense which was lacking back then surprisingly.

Originally posted by RocasAtoll
In general. In old games you can see where they just don't play defense right and it leaves the other man wide open. Blocks is not what I'm talking about; just basic defense which was lacking back then surprisingly.

Perhaps, but it does nothing to allay my assessment that team offense has still taken a dive, in terms of passing, shooting skill, and selflessness. I'm not refuting that the NBA has progressed in many ways over the years, with defense being a likely candidate, but the game as a whole hasn't progressed to the point where today's teams would simply curbstomp those of 20-25 years ago. Far from it.

Originally posted by RocasAtoll

Offensive drought? No. They actually play defense now, albeit still a small amount.

Leave out the Spurs, Shawn Marion, Ron Artest, Ben Wallace, and tell me who the hell plays defense?