i’m sorry, but if kickers can be in the football hall of fame, horry deserves a spot in cooperstown. i don’t care how many minutes he played, not even jordan has had a big impact on winning 7 championships. i don’t remember there every being a guy who could impact a game in such fleeting but pivotal ways.

i love bowen, despite his stats, and even prided myself on more than once being compared to him on the ut austin courts, but i don’t think he should have his number retired. in my opinion, the only spurs numbers that should be retired are gervin’s, robinson’s, and eventually duncan’s and parker’s. call me hard, but retiring a number should be extraordinarily special. sure the celtics have retired 22 numbers, but at that pace, 100 years from now they’ll only have 44 numbers left. what happens in 200 years? yes, i’ve thought about the state of basketball in 200 years. i’m not crazy.

But I think if you are going to have your jersey retired then when someone hears your name they should think Spur.
And when I saw Robert Horry I imagine most people think Lakers or Houston first.
Maybe he can get a 3 colored jersey hung somewhere with all 3 teams.

Bowen should be a lock for jersey retirement since he was a defensive anchor for the Spurs for 3 championships and for all the work he does in SA outside of basketball.

I also do not think he deserves to have his number retired for the Spurs. As others have mentioned, he didn’t play here very long and isn’t one I personally think of as a representative of the Spurs. He isn’t one of those that I think of as proud to be a Spur and wanted their career to be all about San Antonio.

Bruce, in my opinion, represents Spurs basketball. When I think of Bruce, I can only picture him as a Spur. He is so involved in San Antonio’s culture and community and seemed to me as one who loved both the city and organization. He is definitely one of the best perimeter defenders during his time/prime and (again just my opinion) definitely deserves his number to be up in the rafters. His character, work ethic, willingness to play a role, contributions to the community. Representative of the Spurs and one of their all-time great Spurs? You bet!!!

I think that’s what makes Bowen a good retired number. He helpe shape spurs culture. We aren’t about stats here. We’re about loyalty, wins and teamwork. Bowen brought all of those to the table, Horry (while I’ve heard he’s a great teammate, and definitely a winner) did not personify the culture, nor can he be considered loyal to the Spurs, he is professional for us.

I don’t think we should retire a bench player that isn’t someone like Manu. And to all those posters talking about Horry’s epic performance in game 5. Role players are supposed to step up. If you don’t have a role player stepping up, you usually won’t win a series. Steve kerr stepped up, Malik rose did too. I don’t think we should retire their numbers.

Bowen = yes in my book. He’s loyal, sacrificed his own personal glory for the team and was integral to 3 championships, that in itself should be enough.

I think before it’s all said and done, Horry will have his jersey number(s) retired by Houston and Los Angeles.

No championships with no Horry for Houston, and ditto for L.A.

In the case of San Antonio, he didn’t play very many minutes during the regular seasons, overall, and he was therefore less of a factor, and the smart fans will recognize this…but that doesn’t mean he won’t be honored.

Just my opinion.
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Someone inquired about Kobe’s jersey being retired, and I believe the Lakers will honored Nos. 8 and 24 as retired numerals.

The question of whether the spurs should retire his jersey is less straight forward. My personal view is no. As much as he contributed (basically won us the championship) to the Spurs 2005 championship, he was in the twilight of his career. Horry was in his prime with the Lakers and he did most of his damage with them, that’s 3 rings with the Lakers vs. 2 with rockets and 2 with the Spurs. If his number is retired it should be with Lakers or rockets as the team that drafted him. What if he opted to have his jersey retired by the spurs, should the spurs turn him down?

Of course there are 2 sides to basketball, but even on defense, a defensive wing player is perhaps the most common player in the NBA. On offense his numbers were quite atrocious. Here are his PER numbers for his time with the Spurs in the reg season:

8.2
9.1
8.2
9.5
9.1
7.1
7.0
5.4 (i don’t quite EVER remember seeing a number this low before…on any player)

His playoff PER:

9.1
8.9
6.5
5.4
7.9
8.5
7.0
7.4

The man has never broken into double figure PER, EVER, either in the regular season or in the playoffs. PER is what Hollinger uses as an average for how good a player is. Of course stats are not everything. But Bowen’s stats are the worst i’ve ever seen for any player, no less someone being considered to have his jersey retired.

Horry is much more deserving than Bowen in my opinion. But even Horry would only be considered in my book for his 7 titles. His big shots were historic, and give him a huge leap over Bowen in deserving this honer, but still leave him a bit short.

I’m a huge Bowen fan, and I will agree that he is a stretch for getting his jersey hung, although I’d argue all day for it. Just saying.

But if he wants to hang in LA, then that’s his choice. The thing with Horry is that he’s almost like a politician – I get the sense he’ll change his tune depending on his audience. Was he in LA when he made that comment to Dan Patrick? It’s a valid question.

However, not matter how we cut it, his SA years were his relatively worst years. It seems odd to retire someone when for the majority of their career for that team they should have already been in retirement. I love his contributions, but let’s remember this clearly – his last few years were of fairly non-existent contribution.

As for whether or not the Spurs should retire his jersey, I’d have to go with a resounding no. This is the same question I brought up with regards to Bowen: where do you draw the line?

Yeah, Horry made a cadre of bigs shots in his time with the Spurs, and was a key component on 2 championship teams, but he was not only not consistently great, he was not even consistently good. He generally sleep-walked through the regular season, and shot poor percentages.

I’m a huge Horry fan, and not just for what he did in game 5 of the ‘05 Finals, which was the stuff of legend. He’s easily one of the most heady players I’ve ever watched play the game, but overall, at his best he was a slightly above average player, but never anything resembling being a consistent impact player.

You have to be rational, and avoid being nostalgic in these types of situations. At this rate (particularly if the Spurs win another 1-2 championships in the Duncan era), 20 years from now the team will have a bunch of common numbers retired. You’ll see the 2029-2030 Spurs all wearing football numbers.