Robert Horry on becoming 'Big Shot Bob', the Raptors, Fred VanVleet

“Big Shot Bob” is a name entrenched in playoff lore.

Robert Horry was once the best player in the state of Alabama, but he will forever be known as one of the game’s great clutch performers for shots he knocked down during his NBA playing career with the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs.

The stretch-four played a vital role in helping those teams to seven NBA titles, and he was recently in Toronto to promote the NBA Winners’ Corner, a pop-up event celebrating the champions of the game.

Horry took some time out for Yahoo Sports Canada to share how he developed the clutch gene, why he thought the Toronto Raptors were equipped to make their first-ever NBA Finals appearance, and what makes Fred VanVleet so special in his role.

YSC: Rob, you played with a lot of great players, but your role was still critical in helping teams win championships. How did you learn to excel in that space?

Horry: The thing about playing basketball in Houston was we had a great coach, great system and we had guys that believed in me. Once you get that belief in you, it’s easy to play basketball, so, we really never had so called role players. You did your job. An NBA star is a role player, your role is to score a lot of points, your role is to get a lot of rebounds. So, when you say role player, everybody came up and did what they were really good at. Everybody has to do their role very well to win a championship.

YSC: Were you always clutch as a kid growing up? Was there a moment that gave you the confidence that you could be that guy?

It’s a weird moment. It happened in high school, we were playing in my high school’s Christmas tournament, we were up and we actually lost our Christmas tournament because I missed shots at the free-throw line. And, to see how disappointed my teammates were after that shot — here I am, the star player expected to get them to the mountain top and we failed — and, I think, after that moment I never wanted to see my teammates down like that. So, it just put something inside of me where I wanted to go out and make shots and win games, just play hard. Not for me, but for my teammates.

To be honest with you, it was cockiness because I knew I was going to make it. Here I am, number one player in the state of Alabama and it’s a free throw, it’s free! And I missed it, and I realized you can’t go in cocky, you gotta go in there with confidence.

YSC: Looking back on your big moments, you never seemed overwhelmed by any situation or caught up in the emotion of it. Why is that?

Horry: If you’re in big time situations all the time, like for me, high school was big time situations, college — big time situations, you adapt. You learn how to visualize what you want to accomplish and I learned that from a guy in college who said visualization is a vital key to whatever you do and it’s almost like saying if you can see it, you can achieve it.

For me, it was you wanna visualize making shots, visualize the plays, visualize how you’re stopping guys, and that kind of calms you down mentally and puts you in a situation where you can succeed, so that was just me. I put myself in situations to succeed because I had already visualized that night.

YSC: When you talk about having big time situations in the past, I think of Fred VanVleet’s time in Wichita State and how he led that team. What do you make of what he’s done to go from undrafted to having the impact he has on the Raptors now?

Horry: I love his game, he’s a quiet assassin. Goes out there and does what he’s supposed to do for the team. A lot of guys — I tell kids all the time who complain, ‘Oh, I’m not starting,’ here’s the thing: Are you in in the fourth quarter when your team really needs you? If you’re in, that means you’re very important and coach views you as a smart player and he needs you in there because you can handle any situation that arises.

So, I think, with him, just a very smart player, doesn’t do anything to hurt you, does everything to help you.

YSC: Why did you pick Toronto to come out of the East and play in the NBA Finals?

Horry: I had predicted Toronto to win the East [in the regular season], I had predicted them to be the number one team in the East, but I know in this day and age of rest you don’t get the outcome that you should.

You look at the way Milwaukee prepared, they prepared for the regular season, there’s a difference. There are a lot of teams that prepare for the regular season, not a lot of teams prepare for the playoffs. They played really hard in the regular season, but when it comes to playoffs, things shrink. No more fast breaks unless you’re the Golden State Warriors. Everything is different. Experience plays a big part in it.

If you look at Toronto, they got a lot of veteran guys, guys who’ve won championships, got guys who’ve been through the battles, been right there on the cusp but got stopped by a man named LeBron. So, they wanna get there now, they wanna prove their worth, and I think, right now, that’s where they’re at, they’re at a point where they wanna prove their worth.

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