Al Horford’s journey in the NBA took a pivotal turn during the 2016 free-agency period when he chose to join the Boston Celtics, breaking away from the Atlanta Hawks. Since then, he has become a cornerstone of the Celtics and endured numerous playoff disappointments, ultimately waiting 186 playoff games for his first NBA championship. As a seasoned veteran, Horford’s leadership has positively influenced Boston’s young stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, leading to their success. Recently, he played a crucial role in the Celtics’ 2024 championship win against the Dallas Mavericks, showcasing his resilience and dedication. Horford’s story is one of patience, mentorship, and triumph over the odds in pursuit of glory.
By the Numbers
Al Horford is the first player in NBA history to appear in 186 playoff games before winning his first championship.
Horford is a five-time All-Star and has played 1,078 regular-season games before winning his first championship.
State of Play
Horford’s Celtics are facing a midseason rough patch with a 10-9 record since mid-December.
Despite struggles, they still rank third in the NBA’s standings and possess the third-best net rating.
What’s Next
As the Celtics aim to solidify their championship status, Horford’s health and performance will be key. With his impact on the team and experience, he is expected to continue contributing significantly as they navigate the season. The ongoing quest for another title remains a motivating factor for him.
Bottom Line
Al Horford’s perseverance in seeking an NBA championship exemplifies the essence of dedication and teamwork. His legacy is cemented not only through his championship win but also in the mentorship he provides to younger players, defining him as a true leader in the sport.
Al Horford has always been a winner. From his days playing college basketball at the University of Florida, where he won two national championships, to his time in the NBA, where he has consistently been a key player on successful teams, Horford has always found a way to come out on top.
But it wasn’t until he found his home with the Boston Celtics that Horford truly found his NBA glory. After spending the first nine years of his career with the Atlanta Hawks, Horford signed with the Celtics in 2016 and immediately made an impact. His leadership, versatility, and basketball IQ helped elevate the Celtics to new heights, with Horford playing a crucial role in their deep playoff runs.
In his three seasons with the Celtics, Horford became a fan favorite and a respected veteran leader in the locker room. His ability to defend multiple positions, knock down outside shots, and facilitate the offense made him a perfect fit for the team’s system. And most importantly, his winning mentality helped instill a culture of success within the organization.
Horford may not have the flashy stats or highlight-reel plays of some of his peers, but his impact on the court is undeniable. Whether it’s setting screens, making the right pass, or making a crucial defensive stop, Horford always seems to be in the right place at the right time. And it’s no coincidence that wherever he goes, success follows.
As Horford continues his career with the Philadelphia 76ers, his winning mindset and veteran leadership will undoubtedly continue to make a difference. He may not always get the recognition he deserves, but those who know the game understand just how valuable he is to a team’s success. Al Horford may not have found his home in Boston, but he has certainly found his place in NBA glory.
In June 2013, Al Horford and his wife, Amelia, traveled to Miami at the request of freshly hired Atlanta Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer. Finishing his tenure as a San Antonio Spurs assistant before fully transitioning into his new role, Budenholzer wanted Horford, a rising star with the Hawks, to see basketball at the highest level.
“He just wanted me to experience the atmosphere,” Horford remembered, “what it’s like being in the NBA Finals, and to see the level of play. It’s a different level of play when you play in the finals.”
Totally different, as Horford learned. The 2013 NBA Finals would go down as one of the most memorable series ever. Ray Allen rescued the Miami Heat in Game 6 with an unforgettable shot. LeBron James sealed Game 7 with a 17-foot jumper to give his team a second consecutive ring. The heartbreaking loss propelled the Spurs to return the following year with some of the most beautiful basketball ever played.
Horford didn’t have a ticket for the most dramatic parts of the series. He attended Game 2, which Miami won by running away late in the second half. James provided the exclamation point when he met Tiago Splitter at the rim to reject the big man’s block attempt. The Heat evened the series that night. And Horford, much like Budenholzer wanted, left the arena with a full appreciation of the intensity, focus and detail-oriented approach necessary to compete for titles.
The trip to Miami motivated Horford. It stayed with him. It crystallized how high he would need to climb to achieve his goals.
“In the NBA, that was the first time that I was exposed to that level of basketball,” Horford said. “Even though in Atlanta, we were making the playoffs, we were never getting that far. If anything, I would watch it on TV and things like that. But there’s a different feeling in the arena, the environment. You can see the players, you can see their interactions, you can appreciate their intensity in all those little things. And I feel that rubbed off on me in a good way.”
In the NBA, 12 years can represent multiple lifetimes. From that championship Heat team, only James remains in the league. After watching James for decades, competing against him for 17 seasons and admiring from afar the way he carried himself under the most intense spotlight, Horford, now 38, has a rare perspective of James’ legendary career.
GO DEEPER
‘Super impressive’ Jaden Springer emerges from nowhere to lead Celtics over Clippers
Horford was in high school in 2003 when James made his NBA debut. He played in the Eastern Conference throughout James’ reign during the 2010s. He ran into James’ teams four times in the playoffs, including three times in the Eastern Conference finals, and lost each time. As the seventh-oldest active player in the NBA, Horford understands as well as anyone the level of commitment needed to stay relevant for more than two decades in the ever-evolving league. Of course, James has stayed far more than just relevant while averaging 23.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 9.0 assists at age 40 during his 22nd NBA season. He is reaching historic milestones that were never touched before him.
Before meeting James for the first time this season, with the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers set to clash Thursday, Horford shared the lessons he learned from the superstar, his perspective on James’ remarkable longevity and his thoughts on James’ longtime domination of the Eastern Conference.
“Just mentally his focus, his determination, his consistency is to me what’s most impressive,” Horford said. “Because yeah, you have to put in the work physically, but I just think that mindset that he has, and he continues to drive and continues to defy different (limitations) that are being put on us as athletes. So that to me is the most impressive part.
“You talk about his NBA journey and he’s been playing basketball since a very small age, and that’s all he’s done and everything. But for him to take everything in stride and understand that he has to take care of his body, that he has to commit to all the little things, and he seems to do that. And it’s just very, very impressive that he can (still) play at such a high, high level.”
Horford first started paying close attention to James in the early 2000s, like any basketball fan at the time. When James joined the NBA in 2003, Horford was shocked a player fresh out of high school could make such a big impact immediately. Especially with the amount of scrutiny on James, one of the most highly anticipated prospects ever, Horford couldn’t believe how he always lived up to the hype.
“Not only lived up to it, but more,” Horford said. “When you have that type of — it’s responsibility, but there’s burden, there’s pressure, there’s a lot that comes with it. And for him to be able to navigate through all of that, it’s pretty remarkable.”
It only feels more remarkable to a player who competed against James at the height of his powers. Horford long ago learned the frustration so many Eastern Conference players encountered when trying to knock off one of James’ teams. From 2011-18, James reached the NBA Finals eight consecutive times. The conference featured some great teams during that time, including Derrick Rose’s Chicago Bulls, Paul George’s Indiana Pacers and Horford’s Atlanta Hawks. None of those teams ever advanced to the finals. Nobody could knock off James.
“It’s pretty remarkable when you think about it,” said Horford, “because there were really good teams in the East and he just happened to rise above everybody else with his teams year after year.”
LeBron James and Al Horford in Game 2 of the 2015 Eastern Conference finals. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Horford’s best chance with Atlanta to beat James in the playoffs came in the 2014-15 season. The Hawks won 19 straight games from December to January en route to a 60-win campaign. They earned home-court advantage as the top seed in the East but couldn’t take a single game off Cleveland. Kyle Korver’s broken foot in Game 2 only compounded the Hawks’ problems. The Cavaliers won four consecutive games in the series by an average of 13.3 points.
Two years later, Horford ran into James again with the Celtics. Boston dropped the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals before receiving the crushing news that Isaiah Thomas would miss the rest of the playoffs with a hip injury. After Boston captured Game 3 to cut its series deficit to 2-1, Horford, almost always composed, couldn’t contain his excitement as he told sideline reporter Abby Chin that “a lot of people doubted us out there and thought we were finished.”
After 10 straight playoff defeats to James, it was Horford’s first victory against him. The Celtics proceeded to lose the final two games of the series to fall 4-1. The following season, they tangled with the Cavaliers again in the Eastern Conference finals. This time, after trading Kyrie Irving to Boston, Cleveland no longer had a top-shelf roster. Though Irving and Gordon Hayward were both hurt for the Celtics, they won each of their first three home games to set up a Game 7 at TD Garden. James finished that game with 35 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists while playing all 48 minutes in a close Cleveland victory.
James was 33 at the time. Most players would not have much time left in the NBA after that age. He has put together the equivalent of another Hall of Fame career since then, with six more All-Star Games, six more All-NBA teams, one more championship and one more NBA Finals MVP. To Horford, who has aged far better than most, the production this deep into James’ career is astounding.
“The thing I always respected was his commitment to basketball,” Horford said. “… The thing I always saw with him was he always put his work on the court. To me, that was good perspective for me to understand, ‘Yeah, you can be very good and you can have other things going on, but basketball is what’s most important in this business. And that’s what you have to focus on first.’ Him working on his game, him continuing to grow as a basketball player is something that I’ve always seen from afar and respected.”
Those remarks from Horford hold weight. The big man’s teammates and coaches have expressed similar remarks about the way he has handled himself throughout his career.
“It’s everything,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “It’s the way he takes care of his body. It’s the mental approach. It’s his ability to stay even-keeled, not get too worked up. … He’s got a lot of wisdom. He’s great to be around. It’s impressive what he’s able to do over and over again.”
Horford was still a young player when he soaked in the finals 12 years ago. He was hoping to learn what a championship would require from him. At the time, James was already 10 seasons into his career. The odds were impossibly long back then that he and Horford would face off in 2025. Somehow, James is still going.
“It’s very admirable,” Horford said. “Physically and mentally, to be able to take that (burden) and consistently deliver, it’s something that I’m not sure if we’ll ever see anything like that again. It’s just that special.”
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; photos of LeBron James and Al Horford: Lauren Leigh Bacho, Juan Ocampo / Getty Images)
As the NBA season progresses, fans and analysts alike are marveling at the longevity and success of two of the league’s most seasoned veterans: Al Horford of the Boston Celtics and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers. Both players, who entered the league in the same draft class in 2003, have defied the odds and continue to perform at an elite level well into their 30s.
In a recent interview, Horford reflected on the unique experience of aging alongside LeBron, stating, “It’s pretty remarkable to see how both of us have been able to adapt and evolve our games over the years. We’ve both faced our fair share of challenges and injuries, but we’ve continued to push ourselves to be the best we can be.”
Horford went on to praise LeBron’s work ethic and dedication to his craft, saying, “LeBron is a once-in-a-generation talent, and it’s been an honor to compete against him for so many years. He sets the standard for professionalism and excellence in this league, and I have nothing but respect for him.”
As both players continue to defy Father Time and compete at a high level, fans can only sit back and appreciate the greatness of two future Hall of Famers who have made their mark on the NBA for nearly two decades.
In the NBA’s free-agency period of 2016, as Kevin Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder for the team that had beaten them in the Western Conference finals, selecting the Golden State Warriors over the Boston Celtics and other suitors, Al Horford did the opposite. He left the Atlanta Hawks for the team they had discarded in the first round of the playoffs, choosing Boston from a list that also included OKC.
It was a sliding-doors moment that transformed the Warriors into an unstoppable juggernaut and the Celtics into … well, something better than they were. Asked at Horford’s introductory news conference if the signing made Boston a contender, then-general manager Danny Ainge said, “We still have work to do.“
Those Celtics counted Isaiah Thomas as their only All-Star and Avery Bradley as their second-leading scorer. “The vision that I see here,” as Horford described it at the time, included a cache of draft assets, one of which they had just used on Jaylen Brown, that could be flipped for championship-caliber talent.
Horford was the biggest free agent ever to sign with the Celtics. They put their faith in one another, really knowing one truth about each other: They had won before, and they wanted to win again. Horford, a two-time NCAA champion, was looking for his first NBA title, and the Celtics sought their record 18th. Together they would figure this out. It would require patience. And luck. How much of both neither knew.
Nobody in NBA history would appear in more playoff games before winning his first championship than Horford, whose Celtics face the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday for the first time since beating them in the Finals in June.
Entering last season, Horford had played 167 career playoff games. Only Durant and LeBron James have played more among active players. Only 32 players ever had played more. They are, mostly, the all-timers. And only two of them — Karl Malone and John Stockton — had, like Horford, never won a championship.
As Malone and Stockton were to Michael Jordan, Horford had been to James. He lost his first 14 playoff games against James, who ended Horford’s season on five occasions, including every year from 2015-18. For as long as James had been compiling one of the great résumés in NBA history, there was Horford, a five-time All-Star, one of 13 players ever to log his statistical résumé — and somehow still The King’s foil.
Many legends of Horford’s generation teamed together to meet James at the mountaintop. At various points in various places Durant, Stephen Curry, Chris Paul, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving and more joined forces. Some have won championships; some not. You know the ones who have not.
THE 1,050-100-5-0 CLUB
PLAYER
REGULAR-SEASON GAMES
PLAYOFF GAMES
ALL-STAR APPEARANCES
CHAMPIONSHIPS
Karl Malone
1,476
193
14
0
John Stockton
1,504
182
10
0
James Harden
1,113
166
10
0
Chris Paul
1,314
149
12
0
Reggie Miller
1,389
144
5
0
Patrick Ewing
1,183
139
11
0
Russell Westbrook
1,206
122
9
0
Steve Nash
1,217
120
8
0
Joe Johnson
1,277
120
7
0
As many of his peers traveled from place to place, rarely settling anywhere long enough to call home, often applauding as teams stripped their salary-cap sheets of young assets in service of one more chance for their impatient superstars, Horford took an active role in the development of the roster around him.
This is to say nothing negative about any of those other players. Just the opposite. Playoff losses are called “scars” for a reason. They hurt. No one plays 1,000 regular-season games and 100 playoff games not to win a championship. Harden, Paul, Westbrook, Jimmy Butler and Paul George are the only active players who fit that bill. They have won, a lot, only to lose in the end. How would it feel to see one win?
Asked how often he thinks about failing to win a title in his 18-year career, Reggie Miller once said, “Probably every day. It burns me. It burns me. People always want to talk about all the big shots, against New York, New Jersey, Chicago. I relive the shortcomings. I relive Game 7 in 1994, Game 7 in 1995, Game 7 in 1999. I relive those moments. Yeah, it burns me. It does. When people say they don’t regret it, they’re lying. I had a great career; I get it, but it probably wouldn’t hurt so much if I’d never been so close.”
To be a winner who has not won a championship is one of the most agonizing aspects of legendary sports careers. Had you stopped to consider Horford among them? Those who have known him did.
“He’s not doing anything to take away from the team ever,” Celtics GM Brad Stevens told Yahoo Sports. “It’s only about what’s best for the team, and it’s been that way since I’ve known him. When Billy Donovan talked about him, he talked about him that way. When his coaches in Atlanta talked about him, they talked about him that way. He’s a winner.”
Horford had been to the Eastern Conference finals in six of the previous nine seasons. His first 14 forays into the playoffs ended in defeat, as they do for most players, year after year, season after season, until your body is no longer game for the grind. And, like Miller, Horford had compiled his list of what-ifs.
Horford’s first stint with the Celtics was short-lived. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
In the summer of 2019, Horford’s Celtics met a crossroads. Following back-to-back Eastern Conference finals appearances, they lost in the second round of the playoffs. Irving, who arrived in 2017, was planning to leave, and the Philadelphia 76ers offered two things in free agency Ainge no longer could (or would) — near-max money and the chance to compete for a title. Boston’s cache of draft picks had yielded Jayson Tatum in addition to Brown, and suddenly swapping prospects for veterans was a less-enticing prospect.
“I was so surprised by JT’s rookie year, when Kyrie was out for us, and then Gordon [Hayward] was out,” says Horford of 2018. “Jaylen stepped up in a big way. He had some growth, but then Jayson as a rookie — not scared of the lights, bringing his game into the conference finals within four minutes of the fourth quarter of a Game 7 against LeBron [James] and Cleveland. We were right there, so when that happened, I just felt like, man, these guys — they’re young — but I feel like there’s some potential there. Absolutely.”
But as multiple sources said, a book could have been written about the dysfunction on the Celtics during Irving’s final year in Boston.
“It didn’t happen for us,” Horford told the Boston Herald in 2019, following his exodus from Boston, “and moving forward I didn’t know if it was going to be a two-year wait or whatever it was going to be.”
Staring his mid-30s in the mirror, Horford made the move to Philadelphia, signing his four-year, $109 million deal. He viewed the Sixers as his last, best chance at both a big contract and a ring. It was not.
Somehow Philadelphia failed to field a formidable frontcourt with future MVP Joel Embiid and the player who had defended him best. When the Horford-Embiid pairing produced a -0.5 net rating for one pandemic-shortened season, the 76ers cut bait, casting Horford — and a first-round draft pick — to the Oklahoma City Thunder for a since-retired Danny Green. If you cannot win with Al Horford, well then.
For their part the Thunder coveted the draft asset and pledged to work with Horford to find him a home, assuming he would not be a contributor whenever they came around to contending again.
Back in Boston, where the hastened development of Tatum and Brown had expedited Boston’s timeline, Stevens, who had replaced Ainge at the helm of the front office, was in the market for a veteran leader.
Who better than Horford?
On the playgrounds of the Dominican Republic, where he grew up, and Lansing, Michigan, where he spent his high school career at Grand Ledge, Horford, the eldest of six children, developed his leadership style, often serving as “all-time quarterback or all-time pitcher” in their childhood football and baseball games.
“He’d draw up plays with us, strategize,” says Horford’s younger brother, Josh. “He would usually be the one to gather us together to play different games and organize the teams. We were pretty rambunctious kids, too, so I think dealing with all of us could’ve prepared him a little. He also had a lot of responsibility on his high school team at Grand Ledge, and his teammates and even coaches really leaned on him.”
Horford was not a top-tier prospect when Billy Donovan recruited him to the University of Florida in 2004. Ranked 36th in his high school graduating class, Horford was listed among a number of players who never panned out. It took him three collegiate seasons to deliver the first bullet point to a Hall of Fame résumé, something no one else did for another two decades: back-to-back NCAA championships.
Get Stevens started on those Gators, and he reminds you, “Everyone talks about how good they were and how stacked they were, and that’s true, but it wasn’t the most ballyhooed recruiting class ever.”
What made them great could not be rated on a five-star system. It was an intangible that would come to define Horford’s career.
In Horford’s absence the Celtics finished the 2020-21 season with a .500 record and lost a gentleman’s sweep to Durant’s newest superteam, the Brooklyn Nets. Tatum and Brown had developed into All-Stars, but Kemba Walker, their veteran leader, was dealing with left knee injuries that would ultimately end his career.
As hard as it was, I had faith it was going to happen for me.Al Horford
Stevens needed a team with salary cap space to absorb Walker’s contract in exchange for a first-round draft pick. In Oklahoma City he rediscovered a bonus feature in return: Horford’s veteran stewardship.
“His impact on the locker room is real,” says Stevens. “In a lot of ways he is a calming force for the whole place. He has a perspective and a way about him that everybody really respects. When he speaks, everybody listens, and when people talk about great leaders I don’t think they talk about patience, and I’ve always been really struck by how patient Al is with a team needing to have time to come together. …
“He understands a long season. He understands the journey. He’s a big-time winner. So all of those things play a huge role in why anyone would want him, but we saw it firsthand when I was coaching. So obviously getting a chance to get him back was great.”
In the summer of 2021, Stevens’ first order of business as Boston’s newly crowned president of basketball operations: reacquire Horford, whom Stevens had coached to the 2017 and 2018 Eastern Conference finals. So it was that Horford’s 2021-22 Celtics started the year with a 22-22 record, only to jell midseason and make the franchise’s first run to an NBA Finals since the days of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen — the days when Horford, as a rookie with Atlanta, pushed those championship Celtics to a Game 7 in the first round in 2008.
Horford understood the journey.
“As hard as it was, I had faith it was going to happen for me,” says Horford. “I had faith in God that he was going to put me in this position. … I felt like we were doing the right things, we were takings steps, and it just hadn’t happened for me. In this league it’s very unique when you have a real shot, and I felt like these last few years I’ve actually had real shots — that it’s took for me this many years to get to this point.”
Al Horford at the age of 35 was knocking on the door of his career goal when the Warriors, well after Durant’s departure, sent the Celtics home in six games. How quickly everything can change in the NBA.
But Horford, as he always has, stayed the course.
The Celtics came oh so close in 2022. (Photo by Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
At the start of the 2023-24 campaign, he had made the playoffs every year of his 16-year career except in 2014, when a torn pectoral muscle limited him to 29 games, and 2021, when he played just 28 games for the Thunder, and each ended the same — in defeat.
From there it was about staying on the doorstep. With trades for Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday, Boston had reestablished itself as a championship favorite, and it cannot be understated how much work it takes to prepare a 37-year-old body for the grind of another deep playoff run, let alone the mental toll.
As Horford says, “I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy, to feel good, so I can be a part of it.”
Horford may have been the best player on the floor to close out the Cleveland Cavaliers in last year’s East semifinals, totaling 22 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and three blocks in 35 minutes. Three games later he scored 23 points in Indiana to give the Celtics a 3-0 series lead against the Pacers. He was not coat-tailing Tatum and Brown; he was contributing alongside the players he shepherded to that point.
“Game 5 against Cleveland was maybe as good as I’ve seen him play in the time I coached him,” says Stevens. “The magnitude of that performance in that game was just really, really special. … I can’t say enough good things about him, and none of it is B.S. It’s all real.”
If you take all of the joy each one of us experienced winning last year, I think all of us would say a piece of that joy — if not a large portion of it in my eyes — was for Al.Brad Stevens
Back in the Finals for a second time in 2024, Horford started every game against the Mavericks in place of the injured Porziņģis, averaging 9.2 points and seven rebounds in 30 minutes per night. According to the NBA’s tracking data, Luka Dončić called Horford into the action on parts of 35 possessions; Dončić attempted 28 shots and made only nine of them, including one of his 13 3-point attempts.
As the clock wound down on Game 5, the Celtics leading 106-85, Horford switched from one Mavericks guard to another and back again as the last line of a pick-and-roll defense. No steps skipped. When the whistle blew, Joe Mazzulla subbed for Horford, who embraced everyone from his coach to the trainers.
It took 186 career playoff games for Horford to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy, and “nobody deserved it more than Al,” said Brown. “It’s been an honor to be by his side. Al Horford is a real-life legend and hero.”
“Al is for sure one of the best teammates I’ve ever had at any level,” Tatum said in their title’s aftermath. “I think about being 19 and coming in my first year and him taking me under his wing from a professional standpoint. I remember the first training camp. Every day after practice he would encourage me and ask me how I was feeling. … He paved the way for a lot of us, and it means the world to share this with him.”
“If you asked everybody,” says Stevens, “if you take all of the joy each one of us experienced winning last year, I think all of us would say a piece of that joy — if not a large portion of it in my eyes — was for Al.”
Al Horford, NBA champion. (Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
Horford’s path to glory is one every NBA player should wish he could wander, or at least everyone whose career is not played under the weight of all-time expectations. Among five-time All-Stars, only Jason Kidd, Gary Payton and Dwight Howard waited longer than Horford’s 1,078 games to win a first championship.
“It does make it sweeter, seeing the trajectory of Jayson and Jaylen and how they came along, how we built through them and were able to get to this point,” says Horford. “It doesn’t work like that a lot.”
As many of the superstars of Horford’s generation, especially James and Durant, approach the end of their careers, we wonder how they might script their final chapters and to which teams they belong.
But in Boston, Horford is reaping the rewards of his patience, entering every season with a chance for a championship — they are now second place to the Cleveland Cavaliers in this year’s Eastern Conference standings — so long as Tatum and Brown are firmly in their primes, and as long as he has that chance Horford will play, though he is taking his career year to year. But in Boston, Horford has found his home.
“I just want to be here,” says Horford.
And the feeling is mutual. “As long as Al Horford wants to play,” says Stevens, “we’ll want him here.”
Poll people around the Celtics, people who have influence over these things, and you cannot find anyone who does not think last year’s championship sealed two certainties for Horford: His No. 42 in the Garden rafters and, 90 miles to the West, his plaque on a wall in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
“I’m all for any accolades,” says Stevens.
James and Durant stamped their inductions into Springfield long ago, but if you are not a pantheon player, Horford’s career path is one many would trade for. He rode the grind as hard as anyone and was rewarded for it. Mentorship, longevity, greatness — marks of an 18-year career, bookended by back-to-back NCAA titles and the chance to do the same in the NBA.
His Celtics, following a blowout loss to James’ Los Angeles Lakers, are in a rough patch. They are 10-9 since mid-December. They own the NBA’s third-best record and third-best net rating. They are the only team ranked top-five in offensive and defensive efficiency. And they remain the champs until someone determines otherwise. But it is a rough patch, and we know on whose broad shoulders they will lean.
He’s a winner: How Al Horford found his home and NBA glory
Al Horford may not be the flashiest player in the NBA, but he is undoubtedly a winner. From his college days at the University of Florida, where he won back-to-back national championships, to his time in the pros with the Atlanta Hawks and Boston Celtics, Horford has always been a key contributor to his team’s success.
After spending three years with the Celtics, Horford made the move to the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019. Many questioned the fit at first, but Horford quickly proved his worth as a versatile big man who could stretch the floor and play stellar defense.
Throughout his career, Horford has been known for his high basketball IQ, leadership skills, and ability to make the right play at the right time. He may not always put up gaudy numbers, but his impact on the court is undeniable.
Now, as he continues to make a name for himself with the 76ers, Horford has found his home in Philadelphia. He has embraced his role as a veteran leader on a team filled with young talent, and his presence has been invaluable both on and off the court.
As he chases his first NBA championship, Al Horford’s journey from college standout to NBA star is a testament to his hard work, dedication, and unwavering commitment to winning. He may not always get the recognition he deserves, but one thing is for sure: Al Horford is a winner through and through.
Tags:
Al Horford, NBA, Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers, NBA champion, basketball player, sports, athlete, career success, home team, basketball journey, professional athlete, NBA career, sportsmanship, NBA playoffs, team player
