In the wake of rumblings that the Celtics were miffed about the Sixers' tampering with the five-time All-Star, Al Horford addressed the allegations directly in a Monday interview with the Dan Patrick radio show. The 33-year-old play downplayed the possibility after Patrick asked whether he had been 'tampered' with, in a joking tone by Patrick.
“Well, what can I say? It’s just, to me, kind of ridiculous,” Horford said. “It is what it is. I mean, you know Danny. I love Danny. You know, Danny was always really good to me and I know that he was definitely frustrated (that) things didn’t work out with us.”
Horford's contract negotiations have been under scrutiny in recent weeks after Ainge believed that Horford had made a decision about his next destination before free agency began. Horford' camp reportedly broke off negotiations with the Celtics on June 18th hours after Horford declined a $30 million player option with Boston. He signed with the Sixers a couple of hours into free agency on June 30th.
“It was a very difficult decision, just looking at everything that had gone on in the season," Horford said. "My time in Boston, it wasn’t a position that was taken lightly by me. We thought that things were going to work out a certain way with Boston and they didn’t. I had to start looking at the next step, but it was not easy.”
Horford was also asked to expand on what he thought went wrong in Boston last season in the midst of a 49-win regular season and second-round exit.
"We had a lot of high hopes for our group and I just think we were never able to gel like we needed to, coming together as a group and playing at the level consistently that we needed to play," he said. "I felt like we did it at times and our talent carried us a lot of the time, but we just couldn’t be consistent enough as a group. That was definitely disappointing.”
Here's the full interview:
