The Milwaukee Bucks are the reigning NBA champions, but they are still not getting any respect from one retired Los Angeles Lakers great.
On an episode this week of his “Big Shot Bob Pod,” Robert Horry took a shot at the Bucks, predicting that they would not repeat as champs.
“I don’t think there’s ever gonna be a chance for a team to three-peat,” said Horry. “You might get a team to go back-to-back, but as far as three-peat, I doubt that. It might even be any back-to-back teams cause think about what the Lakers did [in 2020]. They win a championship. The next year, they got a whole different team.
“We know Milwaukee ain’t gonna go back-to-back cause they shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” the seven-time NBA champion Horry added. “They only won that because of a big toe.”
Horry is referring to the Bucks’ close call in the second round of the playoffs last year. Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant hit a jump shot late in Game 7 that could have won the series, but his foot was on the three-point line. The game went to overtime instead, and Milwaukee went on to win.
Horry’s comments infuriated many Bucks fans, who posted angry comments and tweets on social media. They argued that Horry had totally downplayed what Milwaukee did in the rest of the playoffs. They delivered a first-round sweep of the Miami Heat, who had just made the Finals the year before, won the Eastern Conference Finals despite Giannis Antetokounmpo getting hurt mid-series, and then won the title with a hobbled Antetokounmpo, beating a very good, full-strength Phoenix Suns team who is proving this season that they were no fluke.
Basketball is a game of razor-thin margins, especially in the postseason. Just about every single NBA champion benefited from a stroke of good luck or a close call somewhere along the way. Ray Allen was just a toe’s length away from stepping out of bounds when he hit his game-tying shot in the 2013 Finals. Horry himself might not have won a ring with the Lakers in 2002 if Vlade Divac had batted the ball out to him just an inch more to the left or to the right. Just because an eventual NBA champion got a lucky break does not mean their entire run should be delegitimized, particularly when they had to put themselves in position to benefit from that luck in the first place.
Granted, Horry does love delivering these kinds of hot takes. Just a few years ago, he upset another fanbase even more with one of his opinions.
H/T Ahn Fire Digital
