FanHouse Robert Horry

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Wednesday, there are 6 days remaining.

As much as we like to get lathered up over today's talented stars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, it's sometimes good to step back and put them in perspective.

They still don't hold a candle to Michael Jordan.

If you think they do, come back to us when they reach Double 6's, which is the number that explains Jordan's greatness as well as any statistic ever placed beside his name.

ORLANDO -- With seven championships rings – although he isn't sure where all of them are today – Robert Horry carries some weight when he talks about how to win an NBA title, and who might win the next one.

Horry was asked this week if he had any advice to offer Magic coach Stan Van Gundy on what to do defensively against the Lakers and Kobe Bryant.

Horry was a teammate of Bryant's when the Lakers won titles in 2000, '01 and '02. He also won titles with the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs.

"I would double team Kobe quicker. Anytime he comes off a pick, you double team him. I'm going to make someone else beat me,'' he said. "You can't let the No. 1 guy beat you. You cut off the head of the snake, then dare someone else to beat you. It's a good strategy, but it's how I became who I am. I was one of those other guys who beat you.''

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ORLANDO -- All the Orlando Magic did on Tuesday night at Amway Arena was delay the inevitable, and they barely did that.

I mean, how do you set an NBA Finals record by shooting 63 percent from the floor (including 75 percent in the first half), dribble before a ridiculously loud home crowd and survive by just four points?

Here's how: The Magic would LIKE to win it all, but the Los Angeles Lakers HAVE to do so, and the Lakers will. In addition to the Magic owning the wrong mindset for dribbling in June, they live and die by the outside shot. Odds are, following Tuesday's shooting spree, they'll slump before long. They'll spend more time in the grave the rest of the way toward playoff extinction than out of it.

Not only that, the Lakers are just better by a Kobe Bryant, a Phil Jackson and an obsession with grabbing a 15th world championship for their franchise. It just might take longer than expected.

By losing the first the first two games of this series, the Orlando Magic have secured their place in history, trailing only the old Baltimore/Washington Bullets as the team with the most consecutive losses in the NBA Finals before getting a victory.

The Bullets lost nine straight consecutive games. They were swept by Milwaukee in 1971. They were swept by Golden State in 1975. They lost Game 1 in 1978 before beating Seattle and winning the NBA title that year.

The Magic have lost six, adding these two to 1995 when they were swept by the Houston Rockets. Can they make it seven tonight? Here are the first six in chronological order:

When you have won seven -- 7! -- championship rings, more than any other non-Celtic, it may be difficult to keep track of all of them. Robert Horry, however, admitted Thursday that he is uncertain of the location of all seven of his rings -- three won with the Lakers and two each with the Rockets and Spurs. The recently retired Horry said a recent move has left his rings MIA and he believes movers may have placed his jewelry box amongst dozens of unopened boxes, against his orders.

"I never wear them and the thing is, I don't know where they are," he said on a conference call to recall playoff memories. "I just moved and they are in a box somewhere. The movers weren't supposed to touch it, but they touched it, but I am hoping they are in the house somewhere. I usually keep them in the bathroom in a drawer."

Robert Horry has said that he would like to be back for his 17th season, but it appears the Spurs don't share the same sentiment. Horry was asked about the possibility of returning to San Antonio next season, and let's just say he was less than optimistic when discussing the topic:

"I don't think so," Horry said when asked if he was coming back to the Spurs. "I think it will be a cold day before that happens. I think they are involved in their youth movement and I think it's a 99 percent chance that I won't be coming back."

Oh right, the Spurs' youth movement. Or not. Horry can tell himself whatever he needs to in order to sleep at night, but the reality is that his diminished skill set prevented him from contributing much at all to the Spurs' success last season. (And yes, getting to the Conference Finals is considered a successful season, even by a defending champion's standards.)

Horry played in just 45 regular season games for the Spurs, and while he was clearly there to provide veteran post-season help, he didn't do much of that either: he played in 15 of the team's 17 playoff games, but managed to score more than three points in just two of them. At this point I'd say it's a stretch that Horry will find any takers for his services next season, although a young team (like a New Orleans) looking for some veteran locker room leadership might want to consider giving him their final roster spot.

[via SLAM]

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Bob Young, azcentral.com: Robert Horry's not the devil, but he might have made a deal with him.

2. With Malice: Time for Jerry Sloan and the Jazz to part ways?

3. Hardwood Paroxysm: Using Hot Spots to break down Spurs-Hornets.

4. Red's Army: Marginally creative headline, but sweet Paul Pierce video.

5. Cake Rocks the Party: "The Guide to Hating Your Spurs."

6. Deuce of Davenport: Winner of Best Headline for the "Dwyane Wade buys his mom a church" story.

The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Brett Edwards.

The playoff series between the Hornets and the Spurs has been consistently one-sided so far -- the home side. The local team has won each of the six games by at least 11 points, the first time such a statistical anomaly has occurred in NBA history. I think that's likely to change tonight though, because for all of the Hornets talent, the Spurs' collective experience is likely to be the deciding factor.

It's been argued that experience is overrated in the NBA playoffs, and Chris Paul was used as the poster boy and case study to prove the argument to be true. But playing well individually and winning home games is one thing.

The Hornets have really been the better team this entire series. They've largely stuck to what has worked for them all season, while the Spurs have had to make some substantial adjustments from game to game. But now the Hornets will have to prove they can evolve: For an upstart team to eliminate a team with a ring in a Game 7 -- even in your own building -- is something else entirely.

Last week when there was a large amount of hub-hub about Utah Jazz fans being classless, I understood why a lot of people were upset. The guy holding up one eye? Yeah, that guy is pretty clearly a waste of human space. And if the fans were actually chanting "Cancer" at Derek Fisher? Well, then, they've won "Classless Fans of the Year 2008", hands down. But for rooting against a guy who left their team to go to a rival, when there's not a lot of information (nor should there be) about which hospital his daughter spends more time in, Los Angeles or New York? I'm not a fan of it, but fans are going to boo just about anything. And the LA Times' one-sided over-dramatization of it was a little much.

But if we're going to talk about "Classless Fans of the Year 2008", we have a late contender! Last night, after Robert Horry's "completely clean, incidental, and admirably 'playoff-level'" whack to the injured back of David West, which sent the New Orleans star to the locker room and may affect his appearance in Game 7, a funny little sound started to come from the arena. Slowly it grew louder and louder.

"Horry! Horry! Horry!"

That's right. After a player delivered a forearm that knocked an opponent out of the game with what was obviously a pretty painful back injury, the San Antonio fans decided to chant Cheap Shot Bob's name.

Now that's class.

But then, maybe we should chant his name! I'll tell you why after the jump.

For the second straight playoff season, Robert Horry finds himself in the middle of a "dirty/not dirty" play controversy. After setting a back pick for David West that knocked the Hornets' star from the game, everyone is going to the video of last year's hit on Steve Nash and saying something to the effect of, "look, he did it again!" First the clip of the play on West (at the 1:29 mark), then the discussion.

I'm the last person in the world that you would expect to come to the defense of the Spurs' edition of Robert Horry, but I'm going to do exactly that -- at least a little bit.