I thought so, even typed in his name once and then erased it in favor of the Elias comment. But I don't think Horry was even a starter with any of those teams. Good call, Bay.
The ironic thing is that even though he knocked down big treys for all those teams (if he misses they lose the championship to the Kings) he might be better known for the hip check on Nash....
Look at the records of the teams he played for. How'd they do 2-3 years before he got there, how they'd do while he was there, and how they fared after he left. If that's underachieving, I want to be an underachiever.
Really? I didn't know he won a NC at LSU. Or, if we're talking soley about the NBA, he failed to win it all at Orlando when he was teamed up with Hardaway. Shaq was a great, great player but he still underachieved given all his talents and the era he was playing in, when he entered the NBA when all the other great NBA centers were entering the twilight of their careers. With Michael Jordan, you get the sense that he maximized his talent. For one thing, superstars are judged by how they do in the fourth quarter, especially when the game is on the line. As good as LeBron is, if he continues to not dominate in the fourth, he'll never live up to his potential to be on the greatest players in the game. And, too often, it seemed Shaq seemed to shrink in those situations. Shaq was lucky that he was teamed up with two dominating closers in Kobe and Dwayne Wade, who have ice water in their veins, who could take over games in the fourth. It was Dwayne Wade who led the Heat to that championship last year. This year, with a hobbled Wade, Miami couldn't even get out of the first round. Too often, his coaches had to sideline Shaq in the closing minutes because of his inability to hit free throws. Other great players entered the league who also shot poorly at the free throw line, but they got better with time until they hit a high percentage of those shots. And, that ties into that Shaq never seemed to work on his game or kept himself in shape in the off-season. If he kept himself slimmer, he wouldn't have been hobbled with those injuries later in his career and he could have still been just as dominating later on in his career. Things came so naturally to Shaq that he never seemed to appreciate it, or ever felt he needed to work to become an even better player. While Kobe was challenging himself in the off-season to become an even better player, Shaq would ballon up and come into the season overweight and unprepared.
I honestly think this post hits the nail on the head. I don't think he has underachieved at all when you look at what he has done However I do think if he could've been in better shape, some of that may be due to injury? He could've played a little better at times!
One thing that I liked about Shaq was that he made everyone around him better. Hard to find these days. Kobe and Wade were better with Shaq when he allowed them to not get double teamed everytime. Kobe without Shaq is a headache to watch. He gets doubled and he still shots every shot. Lebron is still young but I can tell he has the same quality of making everyone around him better but Shaq had greater players to play with.
