Farewell to Al Horford, Underrated Legend
An overappreciation of an unheralded Boston hero
Opening day of the 2019–2020 NBA season will be a strange one for Celtics fans. And it’s not because of the departure of galaxy-brained weirdo Kyrie Irving. No, it’s because for the first time since 2016, Al Horford will not be wearing Celtics green.
Through the good times, the bad times and the surprising times, 2016–2019 has been a weird time to be a Celtics fan! But through it all, Horford has been the rock of the franchise, a consistent steadying presence for the team.
For his whole career, Horford has been the darling of the analytics community and a black sheep of regular fans. That trend continued in Boston, where he was both regularly praised as the engine that powered the team to surprising runs, and criticized by fans for being overpaid. Horford has been underrated for so long that he arguably became overrated, then back to underrated again.
But allow me to take a side in the Al Horford Take Wars— Al Horford rocks! And Boston will be a sadder franchise without him. So, let’s overrate and overappreciate Al Horford, both his defense and his offense. Because if there’s one player who deserves a lot of love for his Boston tenure, it’s undeniably the quiet, understated basketball genius wearing #42.
(Footage courtesy of Tomasz Kordylewski)
Defense
When a player is described as “unheralded,” “unappreciated” and/or “underrated,” it’s a good bet that the next sentence involves the word “defense” somehow.
This is because, even for the most passionate NBA fans, defense is not as interesting as offense. And when people do want to pay attention, they don’t want to pay attention to fundamentals like footwork, or balance. They want to see Rudy Gobert smack a shot into the seventh row or Damian Lillard snatch a ball from a careless point guard, even though blocks and steals are <5% of what makes good defense. Even bad defense, like Patrick Beverley trucking Lonzo Ball into the stands, is at least entertaining.
But fuck all y’all! Because I actually enjoy watching good defense, and Horford is really, really, really good at defense.
In a league that has been pursuing multi-positioned defenders ever since the Warriors showed up and burned the block down, Horford has always been a legitimate #1-#5 defender. Al Horford is a supersized Draymond Green. A little slower, but a little bigger, and capable of doing similar things.
There are very few players in the league who can keep up with De’Aaron Fox, one of the fastest players in the league, when he has a full head of steam.
Even fewer of those players can protect the paint, then recover from the paint to disrupt an open corner three.
And NONE of those players can block Giannis in the paint, not just once, but twice.
Al Horford can do all of that, and can do it against the best of the best. In the 2017–18 playoffs, he walled off Ben Simmons from the paint and put Joel Embiid in a trash can. In 2018–2019, he handcuffed Giannis (Giannis eventually got out of those handcuffs and destroyed the Celtics, but come on — no one stops Giannis besides Kawhi). For most teams, the playoffs are when monsters come out to play and wreak havoc. But Horford just quietly and calmly locks the monsters back in the basement.
Funnily enough, despite the highlights I was able to find above, I wasn’t able to find my favorite Horford moments. Because the quintessential Horford highlight isn’t a block, or a steal. It’s him seamlessly sliding over and eliminating a window or an opportunity before the offense even realizes they have an advantage.
Other players will sometimes think they have the drop on Horford. Guards will string him out, hit him with a few probing dribbles. Bigs will try to back him down. Sometimes they’ll get a tiny window of space. Most of the time they won’t. And then, having wasted five or six seconds on the shot clock, and gained absolutely nothing, they’ll either pass to someone else, or try and shoot over a calm, implacable and perfect contest. Sometimes it’ll work. Most of the time it won’t. Don’t let his quiet demeanor fool you, on defense Horford is an absolute destroyer of worlds.
Offense
Hilariously, just like Horford on defense, Horford on offense does not look cool. He doesn’t put up huge numbers. He doesn’t make great highlight reels. When he shoots, he gets about four inches of elevation. When he dunks, it looks like an accident. At least Tim Duncan would fight the refs sometimes, Al Horford on offense is almost offensively boring.
And despite all that, the man is a complete terror. Because as boring as his game is, it’s also completely well-rounded. Which means there are basically no holes in his game.
Put a big man on him? Horford will calmly drag him out to the perimeter. Your big man will either get dunked on after Horford dives to the basket, over and over, or die one slow, methodical jumper at a time.
Switch a smaller, faster player onto him? Horford will slowly make his way over to the paint, where he’ll quietly clobber your man to death.
Again, this doesn’t generally lead to an avalanche of points from Horford. He averages 13.8 ppg in the playoffs, and his playoff high is only 26 points. James Harden can accidentally score 26 points in the playoffs half-asleep and dead.
But what it does do is completely murder opposing teams. Not only can Horford put handcuffs on most elite big men, there are only a handful of those bigs who can stay with him. Add on the fact that if you switch a wing onto him, he’ll eat that man for lunch, and playoff teams only really have two options:
- Have LeBron or Giannis. This is a good choice! If you have one of those players, you should put them on Horford. It’s a good idea. Although even if you have Giannis, sometimes it doesn’t work that well.
- Totally warp your entire defense as you send help towards Horford.
Most teams pick #2. And then they die.
Not because Horford necessarily pours on a ton of points. But because the second you send help towards Horford, he whips a pass towards Boston’s Dynamic Scorer of the Day. Then Isaiah Thomas/Jayson Tatum/Jaylen Brown/Kyrie Irving knifes to the rim for a dunk or buries an open 3, and the opposing coach self-immolates on the court.
So make fun of Horford’s dorky jumper or -4 inch vertical as much as you like — it’ll be really funny until you realize your team is a smoldering ruin, and he’s quietly sweeping up your ashes.
Farewell
Horford was there for the overachieving Isaiah Thomas team that improbably made the Eastern Conference final. He was there for the even more overachieving Jayson Tatum/Jaylen Brown team that somehow took LeBron James to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. He was there for the dramatically underachieving Kyrie Irving team that somehow went 5–0 in the playoffs before they realized they all hated each other and collapsed into a flaming pile of rubble against the Bucks. He won’t be there for the Kemba/Jayson/Jaylen team, whatever that looks like. Which feels weird.
But hey, maybe it’s better that way. For the first time in a few years, there are no expectations in Boston, either for this season or the near future. The Toronto Raptors are hegemons of the East. Kyrie and KD are coming to burn the world to the ground in Brooklyn. The Bucks are probably the most talented team in the East top to bottom, or maybe it’s the 76ers. The Celtics? Idk man, they’ve got some good players, and some bad players, and a good coach. Who knows! The Nets’ picks are gone, the salary cap space is gone. Kemba and Jayson and Jaylen are free to just play and see what happens.
And Horford? He went a few miles west to Philadelphia, and although my instinctual hatred of Philly runs deep, even I am forced to admit that the 76ers look like an extremely entertaining team. Will the 76ers win the East, and maybe even the Finals, behind an Extremely Large lineup of Horford-Embiid-Simmons-Harris-Richardson (Avg. size: 7'6", 475 pounds)? Or will they crash out in the first round because no one besides Horford can shoot? Let’s find out! Either way, Horford will quietly play amazing defense, drill 3s and be the glue that holds the team together.
So fair winds and calm weather to Al Horford, the only responsible adult on the Celtics for the last three years. May he be underrated and underappreciated no more!