Sometimes, things have to go wrong before they go right.
Al Horford jumped ship when the HMS Kyrie was sinking in 2019, armed with a great offer from Philadelphia and what seemed like a great opportunity at 33 years old.
“It wasn’t the greatest fit,” Ime Udoka, a Sixers assistant that year, said.
We know this part already, but it’s important to start here for Horford to really appreciate where he is now, because not everyone gets back together with the love of their lives after breaking up with them.
“It was very hard,” Horford said of the two-season journey from Philadelphia to Oklahoma City. “It was my 14th year in the league. At the time, initially, I wanted to be on a contending team."
His once chance in Philadelphia fizzled, so he was sent to the Thunder, where he was allowed to get healthy with the promise of accommodating some kind of mutually beneficial trade.
“My thought, even then, and my wife knows this, she's the only one that can say it, but I told her I want to go back to Boston,” Horford told Boston Sports Journal. “That's where I want to be. And at the time, it wasn't something that was doable, that was gonna happen.”
Regret is a powerful emotion.
“That was a difficult moment for me, as a competitor, as a player, failing,” he said, describing the sudden crossroad of his career. Horford was a champion in college who spent years knocking on the door of playoff success but never walking through. “Seeing kind of what I was going to do from that point forward with my career, if I was just going to accept it or if I was just going to put my head down and continue to work and look to get an opportunity.”
It just so happened that Horford’s ex-team was open to getting back together. After two seasons away, Horford’s opportunity to come back to Boston presented itself. That's incredible enough, but now another opportunity sits before Horford, and he is a bit more appreciative of it.
“Right now, you know, looking at it, I'm pretty grateful to be in this position,” Horford told BSJ. “And I think about it. And I know it.”
The Celtics are pretty grateful he’s in this position as well. This isn’t some feel-good story about a ring-chasing hanger-on getting a last ride in the back seat while the kids make a run. Horford is a big part of the plan against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks. He was a big part of the sweep of Brooklyn.
Take, for example, the play early in Game 1 when Jayson Tatum ripped the ball from Bruce Brown and took off in the other direction. Horford sprinted past a flat-footed Andre Drummond to turn the play into an easy 2-on-1 alley-oop finish. Then, late in Game 4, it was Horford again sprinting past everyone as Jaylen Brown rebounded a missed free throw and got it ahead to Marcus Smart, who missed a contested layup. Horford was there, alone, to put it back and seal the win.
"I think they have a big impact because they're effort plays,” Horford said. “They are plays that you're doing for the team. It's a mindset that you're establishing. Guys understand that when I step across the lines, all that I care about is I'm trying to win. … I feel like when guys see that and they see those type of plays, I feel like we fuel off each other. We fuel each other off of that, it motivates us, it makes us want to play harder. And it's something that's contagious.”
Contagious, in Al’s case, is a great thing.
“Al’s got 15 years of doing this? Doing it at a high level,” Smart said after the team’s Thursday practice. “We appreciate everything Al brings to the table, his wisdom, his play, his leadership. And his overall personality of who he is. He cares about everybody. Very selfless. When you have someone like that it’s very contagious and everybody needs to be that guy.”
Horford knew this was possible. Sure, it took a while to figure out, and there were some very frustrating moments along the way, but he always had a feeling the team could get here, and it started with conversations with Tatum and Brown over the summer.
“I got with Jaylen and we worked out together in Atlanta,” Horford said. “I stayed in touch with Jayson throughout. And I told him I was like, ‘I feel like we have a chance to do something really special.’ You know, just looking at how the roster was coming together. And, and I really believed it and I let them know.”
The NBA season isn’t a bowl of instant oatmeal, though. The early struggles threatened to derail Horford’s vision, but his faith never wavered.
“I always felt very confident from the beginning, that we were going to be in this position as a team,” Horford said. “As soon as my news broke, and I saw what we had, because I already played with these guys, I knew what they were about, and I knew how I was gonna be able to help this team, I just felt very confident about us being in these positions.”
There are a lot of reasons why the Celtics are favorites to open the series against Milwaukee. Horford is near the top of that list, which is still amazing even after all we’ve seen. Horford acknowledges that the cadence of the offseason and all the time off has been very good for him, and continues to be a key to keeping him healthy. And a healthy Horford is very good for Boston.
“We've talked about how excited he was to come back to Boston, came in great shape and has been one of our most consistent guys throughout the year,” Udoka said. “So age-wise, I think he's taking a lot of pride in coming back this year, taking on the challenge and like we say with our whole team, being a very good defensive unit in general, and Al allows us to do that with his versatility. So he's almost tailor-made for a guy like Giannis.”
Antetokounmpo is in his prime. He's a 27-year-old wrecking ball, and Horford is one of the best chances Boston has at slowing him down. If they can, Horford and the Celtics will head to the Conference Finals.
He, Tatum, and Brown have done it once before, but Horford is 35 now. A trip to the NBA Finals would be a 36th birthday present. It’s not out of turn to suggest this is one of his last chances. He’s playing at a high level now, but it’s getting a bit more difficult to keep that up. For some, this would add a bit of pressure.
Horford isn’t giving into that. He knows where he is and what’s around the corner, but he’s focused on the chance he has right now.
“I don't feel pressure, but I do embrace the challenge,” he told BSJ. “And I'm really into the day to day, and really making sure that I do everything that I can and just put in the work, the results will take care of itself. But, I'm very, very grateful for the opportunity. I'm very aware of it. And I'm seizing it. It's something that I really enjoy, so I'm having fun.”