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Atlanta Hawks: 2010s All-Decade team

By Daniel Lindsey

Atlanta Hawks Jeff Teague Al Horford Paul Millsap (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
Atlanta Hawks Jeff Teague Al Horford Paul Millsap (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images) /
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Atlanta Hawks Al Horford
Atlanta Hawks Al Horford (Photo by Scott Cunningham/NBAE via Getty Images) /

Center of the decade: Al Horford

Before we get too deep in to singing Al Horford’s praises for his time with the Atlanta Hawks, let’s do a quick blind statistical comparison.

Query Results Table
Crit Crit Crit Crit Crit Adva Adva Adva Adva Adva Adva
PTS TRB AST BLK PER TRB% AST% BLK% ORtg DRtg WS/48
13.5 12.7 1.4 1.2 20.8 23.5 7.8 3.6 115 100 .181
15.6 8.7 3.0 1.2 20.2 14.8 15.4 2.8 115 103 .171

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/20/2019.

In the table above, Player A scores 2.1 fewer points per game than Player B, but easily outrebounds Player B. If assists are your thing from a center, Player B shines. However, each of their offensive ratings are similar and Player A shows up as a slightly better defensive player and has a higher win share per 48 minutes.

Player B’s averages are over a seven-year span while Player A’s are just a one-season average, leading to Player A winning some of the advanced categories. And in case you didn’t figure it out, Player B is Al Horford while Player A is none other than Dwight Howard and his infamous 2016-17 season with Atlanta.

Howard’s one season was the only season that came close to competing with Horford’s stats from the 2010s with Atlanta. Horford was one of the staples of the Hawks’ playoff runs despite missing most of the 2011-12 and 2013-14 seasons.

Al Horford made the All-Star team in four of his seasons and was selected to the 2010-11 All-NBA third team. Horford finished with over 700 rebounds in 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2012-13, a top-11 mark in each of those seasons.

Horford’s career year came in 2012-13, a year where he averaged a double-double with 17.4 points and 10.2 rebounds per game, both career-highs at the time. He would also notch a double-double in 43 of the 74 games he played in. He didn’t get an All-Star selection during this season though.

Horford was the glue of the frontcourt during his time with the Hawks, but the organization could never put enough together to get him the help he needed to consistently contend for a title. It didn’t help that he had to go up against the end of the Celtics dynasty and the start of the Heat dynasty with LeBron James and company.

But despite limited playoff success as a team, Al Horford is far and away the best center the Hawks had in the 2010s.

Others considered: Zaza Pachulia, Alex Len, Dwight Howard

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