Boston Celtics: 2017-18 player grades for Al Horford

The Boston Celtics’ season may have ended at the hands of LeBron James, but Al Horford was a big reason why they were there in the first place.

Some will say the Boston Celtics’ success this season was due to the coaching genius of Brad Stevens. Others will attribute it to the offseason trade acquisition of Kyrie Irving. Still others will attribute it to a second -ear surge from Jaylen Brown, or last year’s No. 3 pick Jayson Tatum. All certainly played a vital role in guiding the Celtics to a 55-27 record and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, but none was more integral and valuable to the team than Al Horford.

Al Horford just wrapped up his 11th season in the NBA, and his second with Boston. Over the course of his career, Horford owns career averages of 14.2 points, 8.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game. The latter category is a bit misleading, as Horford has averaged no fewer than 4.7 assists per game in his short time with Boston.

ESPN denotes Horford’s position as a power forward — his natural position — but he played 57 percent of his minutes at the 5-spot this past season, and 75 percent of his minutes as a center in his first season with Boston. Regardless of the discrepancy, Horford was fourth in assists per game amongst all qualified power forwards this past season with 4.7, and was third the previous season with 5.0 per game. Not bad for a player “whose team has outgrown him.”

Al Horford is a former No. 3 overall pick, and while he may not be the polished scorer that Tatum is, (or that Brown is becoming), his value isn’t in his scoring ability — it’s everywhere else.

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:

Weaknesses

As nice as it would be to sing Horford’s praises all the day long, he does have one glaring weakness: his inconsistent scoring.

Let me be clear before I go any further: Al Horford does not to be averaging 20 points a game to be considered a good player; he already is a great player. It’d just be nice if he scored a little more.

In the 72 games he appeared in during the regular season, Horford posted double digits in the scoring column in 54 of them. Of those 54 outings, he only cleared 20 points 11 times. That last stat should be looked at with a bit of an asterisk, as Horford was still the fifth-leading scorer on the Celtics, and only one player averaged more than 20 points a game (Kyrie Irving).

Another weakness Horford possesses is his over-willingness to be a good teammate.

It won’t show up on film to the casual observer, but Horford can waste a few extra seconds off the shot clock looking for a cutting teammate when he has a lane himself. It’s not like Horford hasn’t shown he can handle the ball quite well on his own:

Al Horford has had a few nicknames throughout his career — Playoff Al, Big Al to name a few — but one that he and the Celtics hopes he adds is Aggressive Al. It could mean the Boston Celtics are the new representative of the Eastern Conference in next year’s Finals.

Highlights

Some of Al Horford’s season highlights have already been shown, but not all.

In this play against the San Antonio Spurs, Al Horford puts the ball on the ground, and well, let’s just say the Spurs didn’t have a chance.

Horford receives the pass from Jaylen Brown, who then receives a screen from Terry Rozier. Horford spins and tumbles down the lane all the way to the cup. Two points to House Boston.

Jusuf Nurkic has long been buried in the NBA Graveyard at the hands of the King, but it was Al Horford who made sure that grave was deep: 

The Celtics may have lost Game 7 recently against the Cleveland Cavaliers, but Al Horford made sure they went out with a bang:

Final grade

The Celtics’ season may be over, but they have Al Horford for two more seasons, and while Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens will assuredly be looking for more of what they’ve seen from Horford so far, with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward returning next season, Al just has to continue to be his normal, versatile self.

Could Al Horford have bumped his scoring average a bit after Gordon Hayward went down? Sure, but then that takes away shots from Jayson Tatum, and maybe he doesn’t have the breakout season he had.

Could Al Horford average a few more rebounds per game than 7.4 per contest, considering he’s 6’11”? Sure, but he also was the Celtics’ leading rebounder this past season, and was the previous season as well.

Could Al Horford just do a little more on offense? Sure, but he also increased his 3-point efficiency from 35.5 percent to 42.9 percent in just one season (albeit on a slightly decreased volume).

Al Horford is a good player, and is worth every penny of his max contract.

Next: The 50 greatest NBA players of all time (updated, 2016-17)

Grade: A