The NBA sidekick Hall of Fame

Sam Cassell and Robert Horry

Sam Cassell was drafted in 1993 with the 23rd overall pick. He is famous for a dance where he mimes carrying grapefruit-sized testicles.

Robert Horry was drafted in 1992 with the 11th pick. He is famous for making big shots.

Horry and Cassell were both key cogs in Houston when Hakeem Olajuwon revised his entire legacy to date. Horry started, while Cassell came off the bench. Neither player averaged double-digit points that year, although Horry came close. Neither player averaged more than 30 minutes a game, although Horry came close. Horry was third on the team in VORP; Cassell was eighth.

During the second title run, they each played a bigger role, but Cassell still rose off the bench. He also led the team in assists, but he only averaged 4.9 a game. He was now playing 23 minutes a night. Horry was up to about 32.

Cassell’s per 100 possession numbers revealed his true promise. He projected as a starter down the road. Houston would either have to make room for his grapefruits or he would have to take them elsewhere. He couldn’t ride the bench forever. On the other hand, Horry’s per 100 numbers didn’t suggest his trajectory would change at all throughout his career. He projected as a solid starter and he was exactly that. He would always find room in space, between two stars.

The two players concluded their business in Houston and launched into the rest of their careers. Both were traded to Phoenix for an aging Charles Barkley. (Star power. YAY!) And both would finish the 1996-97 season somewhere other than Phoenix.

Cassell’s first year away from Houston saw him splitting games between Phoenix, Dallas and New Jersey. Eventually, he would find his way to the Milwaukee Bucks, where he became a star alongside Ray Allen and Glenn Robinson. They almost made an NBA Finals together, but were blown out in Game 7 by Allen Iverson’s Philadelphia squad.

Cassell’s lone All-Star appearance would occur four years later in his first season as a Minnesota Timberwolf. He and Latrell Sprewell teamed up with Kevin Garnett to prove that Minnesota’s front office was to blame for most of KG’s playoff troubles. They reached the Western Conference Finals and then lost to a self-destructing Lakers team.

Cassell then spent two seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers, where he and Elton Brand started rebranding the franchise well before Blake Griffin and Chris Paul arrived. The stint was short, though, and Cassell was old and only growing older. He would reunite with Garnett and Allen in Boston, but he would log only 51 minutes in the 2008 NBA Finals. He would teach Eddie House how to dance the testicle dance.

Meanwhile, Robert Horry hit big shots. He hit them as a Houston Rocket. He hit them as a Los Angeles Laker. He hit them as a San Antonio Spur. However, his greatest clutch performance was a deluge. In the swing game of the 2005 NBA Finals, he scored all his 21 points in the final 17 minutes of the game, giving San Antonio a 3-2 lead against the Detroit Pistons.

His individual performance in that game stands as testament that Horry was more than a player standing in the right place at the right time at the end of a game, but a guy who could flat out ball for a team when necessary. It was the accumulation of a career spent watching Hakeem and Shaq and Kobe and Duncan. It was for all the shots he probably could have taken if he had taken his talents to other cities with fewer stars.

Space Jam premiered in November of 1996, which is more than a year after the Houston Rockets won their second title or, in other words, after Michael Jordan had reclaimed the basketball world. A solid body of evidence exists on YouTube and in the memories of basketball fans everywhere that Cassell and Horry were Monstars, or at least, in league with Monstars. They seemed to zap greater and older players of their strengths during their early years in Houston.

Unlike Monstars, they found a way to sustain their skills and talents. Yet their careers diverge in kind. Cassell became something of a star, but he never played quite to the stature he sometimes projected. Daring to hold the candle he always managed to get burned in the process. Horry, on the other hand, rarely seemed to even consider a career greater than standing in dark space.

The key for a sidekick is to log enough minutes with the right star in the right years. Doing so provides opportunities. Another key is to not climb too high on the totem. Don’t be Icarus. Cassell liked to climb. Horry didn’t. For the most part, it obviously worked out for both. Horry had more rings, but Cassell had a bit more of everything else. One can still wonder what careers they might have had if either was a little bit more like the other. After all, that’s how careers are made and not made: by what players can and cannot do.

Horry was a full five inches taller than Cassell, and yet out of the two players, Horry’s career is the one that exists because of its limitations. He was not a great rebounder, especially given his size, and better defenders were always available. He wasn’t even a great shooter despite the great shots he made.

Cassell, on the other hand, accomplished everything in spite of his physical limitations. He was never the strongest or quickest guard on the floor. He was always more old man and wily than anything else. He accomplished everything out of spite. He was vindictive. And then, so was Horry. There was that hip check, after all.