Lakers News: Former LA Champ Explains Infamous Nick Van Exel Postseason Catchphrase

Former Los Angeles Lakers combo forward Robert "Big Shot Bob" Horry recently chatted with Matt Barnes (another ex-Laker) and Stephen Jackson of Showtime's All The Smoke podcast to talk about his storied career as one of the league's all-time role players.

The 6'10" sharpshooter was first selected by the Houston Rockets with the 11th pick in the 1992 NBA draft out of the University of Alabama, and won his first two titles in 1994 and 1995 on a Rockets club fronted by Hall of Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon (and another Hall of Famer, shooting guard Clyde Drexler, in 1995).

Horry was flipped to the Phoenix Suns in 1996. After clashing with Suns head coach Danny Ainge, he was traded to the Lakers in 1997, just in time for the start of the team's Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant dynasty. At the time, the club also sported two other All-Star players (Bryant was just a rookie reserve that season), point guard Nick Van Exel and shooting guard Eddie Jones. 

The team didn't really get cooking until the next season, when Bryant first showed signs of being something special. The then-19-year-old would go on to finish second to Phoenix Suns backup Danny Manning for 1998 Sixth Man of the Year honors.

Still coached at the time by Del Harris, the Lakers were not quite what they would become just yet, though they were emerging as a force in the Western Conference. O'Neal, Van Exel and Jones all were named to the All-Star team that season. Shaq was named to the All-NBA First Team, averaging 28.3 points, 11.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks a night. The club would go on to finish with a stellar 61-21 record, good for third in the West, during the 1997-98 season. LA made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in seven years, where the team would be swept by the Utah Jazz.

Infamously, Nick Van Exel cooked up a cheer that later was misconstrued as being a bit more tuned-out than it truly was. "1, 2, 3 Cancun!" was seen as a preemptive Game 4 surrender with Los Angeles trailing the Jazz 0-3 at the time, but, as Horry details, was actually more of a backs-against-the-wall rallying cry.

"See people don't understand where that came from. The '1, 2, 3 Cancun!' came when we got swept by Utah. And people don't understand," Horry said. "It wasn't to be negative. It was to try to loosen up. Nick was trying to loosen up the team. 'Cause we [were] down 3-0. He said, 'Man, let's just go out here and play loose. If we don't, [we're] going to Cancun. On three, 1, 2, 3, Cancun!' And everybody took it as Nick saying, 'Oh, f--- this. The season's over with,' right? He was trying to loosen guys up. We lost that game, [we] lost to a better team. We were [a] young, immature team that got [beaten] by a veteran team who went on to go to the championship, but didn't win it though."

The Utah Jazz would go on to lose the NBA Finals in six games during Michael Jordan's last year with the Chicago Bulls.

"And then the next year [1999] we hate that the Forum got shut down by San Antonio, we got beat by a better team [the eventual champion Spurs]... But the next year [2000], we came in, everybody was motivated. We were locked in. Shaq got in shape because we got this new coach, Phil [Jackson], coming in, and I think this was the first training camp I've ever been to where everybody was in shape."

Los Angeles would go on to beat the Indiana Pacers in the 2000 NBA Finals to claim its first of three consecutive titles during the "Shaqobe" era. Horry, of course, would later switch allegiances yet again, joining the Spurs to win his final two (of seven!) league titles in 2005 and 2007.

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