SAN ANTONIO (AP) -``Big Shot Rob'' might be done breaking hearts.
San Antonio Spurs forward Robert Horry said Saturday he's considering stepping away from the game after winning seven NBA championships in a 16-season career.
``Right now I'm up in the air,'' Horry said. ``That's all I can really tell you, up in the air. I want to play, 80 percent of me wants to play and I'm sure as soon as I get in the gym and see people bouncing the ball it would turn into 100 percent. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens.''
The defending champion Spurs lost in the Western Conference finals to the Lakers in five games. The series concluded Thursday night, and it was widely expected that this would be Horry's last year.
Horry, known as ``Big Shot Rob'' for a resume filled with clutch baskets on the biggest stages, turns 38 in August.
During the playoffs, Horry passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most playoff appearances in NBA history. Horry finished this season with 244 playoff game appearances; Abdul-Jabbar had 237. Horry has been in the playoffs in every one of his NBA seasons.
``I think that if I stick around I'm still better than a lot of players,'' Horry said. ``I might not be as fast as a lot of them or as quick. But I'm smarter than probably about 98 percent of the league.''
Still, Horry is representative of one challenge the Spurs may have to address in the offseason: age. San Antonio's roster is getting older, and injecting some youth into the lineup over the summer is a possibility.
``I think that when we lose, people tend to talk about, 'You're too old,''' Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. ``Just like when we win they talk about how experienced we are. ... We've got to make sure we know why we're adding a certain person or eliminating a certain person rather than just do it because you didn't win the championship. So that's always our goal, to do it for the right reasons.''
Horry played in 45 games in this regular season for the Spurs, missing 13 games at the end with a left knee contusion. Horry did not play in Game 5 against Los Angeles and had a knee drained during that series.
Horry said that while he'd like to play for the Spurs, he wasn't ruling anything out.
``It's more so here - basically here and nowhere else, but I'm not going to close the book,'' Horry said. ``Somebody has a chance of going to the playoffs, has a chance of winning, have a team that I can respect and players I like and think I can go out and enjoy battling with, I'll look at that situation but other than that, no.''
Horry won two titles each with Houston and San Antonio and three with the Los Angeles Lakers. He's one of only eight players in league history with seven or more rings.Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
