NBA Power Rankings: All 30 Starting Centers

6.  Al Horford — Atlanta Hawks

Atlanta has been under too much scrutiny in the last two weeks for us to forget completely about it, wouldn’t you say?

Never did any of us see the Danny Ferry incident coming out of left field, or it even being the Hawks that would let such a thing occur.  Of course, we’re referring to the racial comments that swirled around with Ferry and owner Bruce Levenson over the course of the last two years.  Both were separate encounters, but offer the same amount of backlash for what was said.

This is all important regarding Al Horford, because we still don’t know for sure if head coach Mike Budenholzer has been involved in anything.  It appears that he has steered clear of the controversy, and that he’ll be locked in Atlanta for the long haul.

That’s terrific, because this team thoroughly enjoyed running his offensive sets he may or may not have high-jacked from San Antonio (Popovich doesn’t care).  Horford was only able to play under Budenholzer for 29 games before hitting the injury list with a torn pectoral muscle.  It’s unfortunate how the weirdest of injuries can keep someone as crucial out for 53 games.

Many forget that Horford played alongside Joakim Noah at Florida back in their younger days of winning national titles, and it’s likely because Noah has amassed so much public observation.  Once again, you go back to the team aspect of things, where the better your overall unit, the more attention you receive for your individual achievements.

During those 29 games he was healthy, Horford was only the fifth most efficacious center in the league, by the method of PER.  Horford’s PER peaked at 22.08 before his injury, and his True Shooting Percentage (58.8) was third among that group of five (Cousins, Drummond, Jefferson, B. Lopez, Horford).

While it could be said that Horford returning to the lineup in 2014-15 could prevent the Hawks from being the trigger-happy outside team they loved to be last season, it’s not diminishing their win total.

This former Gator is on his way to becoming an offensive stuffer, and with careful attention to free throw shooting, he’ll be one of the three or four centers to average over 20 points on a nightly basis.