Boston Celtics: 2017-18 player grades for Al Horford

Strengths

This slide could turn into a whole article, but for the purposes of this exercise, only a few strengths will be chosen.

The first strength is that Al Horford is a chameleon. In other words, he’s willing to do what’s necessary to win.

One of the ways Horford has shown this is his willingness to be a facilitator. That’s not to say that Horford didn’t want to play that role during his time in Atlanta, or that former Hawks head coach Mike Budenholzer didn’t utilize him in that manner, but rather that Horford took the new role in stride in Boston.

As already mentioned, Horford isn’t a prolific scorer, but the highest assists average Horford posted in Atlanta was 3.5 per game. In his first season in Boston, that number jumped to 5.0. That’s a pretty impressive feat, considering he was still adjusting to a whole new playbook and teammates.

Take this play from a regular season contest against the Phoenix Suns. Devin Booker tries to split the defense off a pick from Tyson Chandler, but Kyrie Irving doesn’t lose any ground and disrupts Booker’s handle into a turnover. He then passes it to Horford in transition, who could have tried to bring it himself up the court. Instead, he makes the split-second decision to thread the needle to a sprinting Jaylen Brown. Slamma. Jamma.

Another strength Al Horford possesses — aside from anchoring the league’s No. 1 defense thanks to his positional versatility — is that he produces timely and clutch buckets.

When the word “clutch” is put on a player, it’s typically a guard like Horford’s teammate Kyrie Irving. Irving has earned that reputation, but it’s time to put some respect on Alfred Joel Horford’s name:

With four seconds left, Patriots fans were deflated, but Al Horford knocks down the game-winner.

And who can forget Boston’s improbable 26-point comeback, which was capped off by this beaut?

I’ll let New York Times’ bestselling author Shea Serrano wrap this slide up for me: