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AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) Robert Horry laughed as he looked over a set of Detroit Pistons game notes from 1994.
"Wow," he said when he saw his name on the Pistons' roster. "That's crazy."
On Feb. 4, 1994, Detroit traded Sean Elliott to the Houston Rockets for Horry, Matt Bullard and two second-round draft picks. Horry made it to the Palace for that night's game against Seattle, but never got past the locker room door.
"Matt and I were heading out to warm up, and they stopped us and told us that Sean hadn't passed his physical, so we couldn't play," Horry said Thursday before Game 4 of the NBA Finals between the Pistons and his current team, the San Antonio Spurs. "The next day, they told us he had failed it, and we went back to Houston. I was pretty happy about that - it's too cold here in the winter."
Horry has other reasons to be glad the trade fell through. That spring, he won the first of his five championship rings, while the Pistons were finishing 20-62.
"Were they that bad?" he asked. "Wow, I'm glad I got out of there."
Horry would have joined a team that was made up of stars at the end of their careers like Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas, young players like rookies Lindsey Hunter and Allan Houston, and journeymen like Terry Mills, Cadillac Anderson, Olden Polynice and Mark Macon.
"I've thought a lot about how things would be different if that trade had gone through," he said. "I might not even still be in the league."
Horry has won titles next to dominant big men like Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal. The 1993-94 Pistons had Anderson starting in the middle.
"I guess they had T-Mills - he could shoot it," Horry said. "But that's not the kind of big guy I had success with."
DECONSTRUCTING DUNCAN: Spurs coach Gregg Popovich thought All-Star Tim Duncan would bounce back from a subpar effort in Game 3, when he scored 14 points on 5-of-15 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Numbers like that in a finals game apparently bothered Duncan, who "just beats himself up" when he thinks he hasn't played well, Popovich said before Game 4. "He gets disappointed in himself, and when the next game comes, his cup fills again and he comes with a renewed focus.
