Robert Horry was never what you would call a “superstar” in the NBA, but his name is well-known to basketball’s biggest fans. “Big Shot Bob,” as the sixteen-year veteran became known, won seven NBA championships during his stints with the Rockets, Lakers, and Spurs. Horry reportedly hated the nickname, but it was well-earned thanks to his penchant for hitting clutch shots to seal victories in the playoffs.
These days, Horry stays around the Lakers and the NBA as a studio analyst for Spectrum SportsNet in Los Angeles. The network had its NBA crew on hand on Wednesday night in anticipation of Game 5 between the Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers. That game, and the rest of the NBA slate, was postponed after the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the floor for their game against the Orlando Magic earlier in the evening. The boycott was in response to police in Kenosha, Wisconsin shooting Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man, in the back seven times.
Horry spoke on the issue from the point of view of a Black parent. His reaction has drawn praise and support from around the country.
August 25 was Horry’s 50th birthday. He says he sat on the couch that day and cried thinking about the video of Blake being shot. He said the first time he watched the video, it was without volume. “I thought maybe they were going to tase him, right? Because that’s what they do with white people. They tase them.”
It was his youngest son Christian that pointed out that Blake was shot. Horry broke down in tears as he recalled the conversation with his 14-year-old that followed.
“I worry about him when he walks out that door. I have a 21-year-old son. I worry about him. Because Black men are endangered species pretty much. People, these cops, are just killing because they feel like if they don’t have they body cams on, they have a right.”
Any parent would struggle to listen to the conversation Horry says he has had with his sons without getting choked up.
“I say ‘Dude, I don’t care what’s going on, because at the end of the day I want you coming home to me. If you have to lay down on the ground and they can kick you, beat you, at least you’re gonna go to the hospital and you’re gonna come home to me. Whatever they say to you, don’t take it upon yourself to let that rage you have against that cop come out, because he has the gun. He can end you. I don’t want him to end you, because if he ends you, that means I’m gonna end him.'”
Horry acknowledged that that sort of sentiment isn’t necessarily right or okay, but said that his feelings are shaped by already having lost one child. His daughter Ashlyn was 17 when she died of a rare genetic disorder in 2011.
