On Tuesday morning, supporters of the Boston Celtics discovered that Jeff Van Gundy would be stepping down from his position as advisor to Brad Stevens, president of basketball operations.
On Tuesday, though, Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck said that one of the team’s most important players will return for the 2024–25 campaign.
After completing his 17th season, the five-time All-Star centre has participated in almost 1,200 games throughout his career (postseason included). Horford’s record for the most games played without a championship in NBA history before Monday was tied with Hall of Famer Karl Malone.
Horford is still performing at a high level as he gets closer to 40, as he demonstrated once more in the 2023–24 season.
In order to play his rookie season in Boston this winter, the Florida product gave up his position as a starter for the duration of his career. Horford then returned to the starting lineup and performed admirably after the Latvian had an injury during the playoffs.
Following Porzingis’ right calf injury in Game 4 of the team’s first-round series against the Miami Heat, Horford returned to the floor for the first five minutes. After that, Porzingis missed more than a month’s worth of games, missing the whole second and third rounds matchesups against the Indiana Pacers and Cleveland Cavaliers, respectively.
With his fellow big man sitting out, Horford produced several clutch performances. Over the course of the Celtics’ four-game Eastern Conference Finals sweep of the Pacers, he averaged 12.8 points and 7.3 rebounds.
In the five NBA Finals games that followed, he finished with 7.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.6 assists while shooting 13 of 25 (8 of 17) from three-point range.
Even if he isn’t scoring as many double-doubles as he once did, Horford is still an important player for the Celtics.
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