Robert Horry, who has played alongside Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, was recently asked which of those superstars he would rather build a team around.

He responded with a question of his own: “Am I trying to win a championship; or am I trying to fill seats?”

Even though Bryant and Duncan have each won five titles, Horry would pick Duncan if the goal is to bring home a Larry O’Brien trophy.

“Not saying that you can’t win them with Kobe, but Tim is that guy that’s going to be that rock, that consistency,” Horry said.

That was just one of the popular debate topics Horry spoke openly and honestly about in an interview with the Express-News. Another was which one of his former coaches he preferred — Gregg Popovich or Phil Jackson.

“I would rather play for Pop,” said Horry, who played for Popovich from 2003-08. “The thing that I’d say best about Pop is he would curse you out, (but) he treats everybody the same on the team, whether you’re a starter or the 12th man.

“He knows how to leave things in the gym because he’s a true believer in family. And that’s what you are when you’re on a team — you’re family. You’ll get in arguments at times, but at the end of the day, I’ve still got nothing but love for you, and I’m going to let it go. A lot of coaches don’t know how to do that, and they’ll hold grudges for a long time.”

Horry, 45, has been retired for eight years and now lives in Houston. He owns a rehabilitation clinic in Sugar Land and works as an ambassador for the NBA and as an analyst for the Los Angeles Lakers on Time Warner Cable.

Not surprisingly, his greatest challenge with commentating is being too candid.

Back to Gallery Spurs Where Are They Now? Robert Horry 7 1 of 7 Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News 2 of 7 Photo: Courtesy photo 3 of 7 Photo: Jerry Lara /San Antonio Express-News 4 of 7 Photo: Jerry Lara /San Antonio Express-News 5 of 7 Photo: Express-News file photo 6 of 7 Photo: Express-News file photo 7 of 7 Photo: EDWARD A. ORNELAS /SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS













“Sometimes you can get too personal, which can hurt guys’ feelings because guys don’t have a thick skin like they used to,” Horry said. “You just have to dial it back and understand that you were once them, and you probably don’t want to be criticized as much as they’ve been. But to find the happy medium is hard.”

During his playing days, Horry won an astonishing seven NBA championships over his 16-season career — the most of any player not with the 1960s Boston Celtics. He won two titles with the Houston Rockets (1994, 1995), three with the Lakers (2000, 2001, 2002) and two with the Spurs (2005, 2007).

Horry finished with career averages of 7.0 points and 4.8 rebounds, but he was best known for what he did in the final seconds of games.

Magic Johnson called Horry one of the 10 greatest clutch players of all time after he made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Lakers a 100-99 win over the Sacramento Kings in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference finals.

But Horry said another compliment stood out to him more.

“You know what really topped that,” Horry said, “‘Iceman’ (former Spurs great George Gervin) picked me as one of the players that he would choose to take the final shot. For me, Iceman picking me was better than what Magic said.”

Popovich, however, pointed out that even though Horry is a great closer, he deeply relied on his teammates for those moments of glory.

“It’s not like he had the ball and did something,” Popovich said. “Somebody else had the ball and did something, and he ended up with the ball, and he had the guts and the courage to shoot it, and not worry about whether it was going to go in or not. It’s not like he was making this great move or anything. He knocked shots down for everybody — for us, for Houston, for the Lakers. In that sense, he was one of the best ever.”

When Horry was asked what was the greatest moment of his career, he didn’t pick one of his many game-winning shots. Instead he pointed to the day he was drafted by the Rockets as the 11th overall pick in 1992.

“I never had dreams of playing in the NBA,” he said. “I wanted to be a math teacher. I wanted to be a teacher like my mom. Being drafted was the biggest thing because it was like winning the lottery. It was something I never dreamed about.”

When he retired in 2008, Horry wanted to spend as much time as possible with his children. His daughter, Ashlyn, died in 2011 of a rare genetic disorder at 17. He also has a son, Cameron.

“You don’t realize that for 30 years of my life, since I was a freshman in high school, somebody’s been telling you where to be, what to eat, what to do,” Horry said. “Now you just put your hands behind your back and lay back, and do what you want to do.”

Horry thinks Bryant, who announced he will retire at the end of this season, will be remembered for his competitiveness, something that was both good and bad.

“I’ve seen first-hand, where they would lose to us in practice, and he wouldn’t talk to us for two or three days,” Horry said of Bryant. “"It's debated on how people are going to look at him, but at the end of the day, I think he was a great basketball player and he brought a lot to the NBA. He shined a light on the NBA that was almost as bright as Michael Jordan’s light.”

Horry is remembered in a less complicated way.

“The thing I remember about him is that he was the most calm, cool and collected guy that I ever played with,” said Matt Bonner, who played with Horry on the Spurs. “He just always was super relaxed, even in pressure situations.”

Even though Horry is one of the top closers to ever play the game, he said whether or not the shot went in never meant that much to him.

Perhaps that’s what made him so good.

“I’ve always felt that basketball is just a game,” Horry said. “I just sat back and said, ‘If a shot goes in, it goes in.’ But to me, this is not reality. This is not what makes me click.”

mrohlin@express-news.net

Twitter: @melissarohlin