{"id":221694,"date":"2025-09-12T19:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T19:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/221694\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T19:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T19:53:10","slug":"al-horford-has-pretty-strong-case-for-this-huge-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/221694\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Horford Has ‘Pretty Strong Case’ For This Huge Honor"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics have had 23 players\u2019 numbers retired<\/a> and hung from the rafters.<\/p>\n

Jayson Tatum is almost certainly going to earn the distinction eventually, but there\u2019s one other player that MassLive\u2019s Brian Robb said has a \u201cpretty strong case\u201d for the honor.<\/p>\n

The Celtics beat reporter published his Celtics Mailbag on Friday<\/a>\u00a0and was asked about free agent center Al Horford\u2019s chances down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe definitely felt like a shoo-in to me after another couple of years in green, something that felt inevitable with the way he talked about his future before the end of the season,\u201d Robb wrote. \u201cHowever, Jayson Tatum\u2019s Achilles tear changes the reality for next season for both Boston and Horford. The team obviously couldn\u2019t justify paying Horford his worth for a non-contender, and Horford understandably wants to play for another ring, leading to his expected departure to Golden State.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horford\u2019s credentials during his two stints in Beantown include two NBA Finals appearances, one championship and one All-Star honor across seven seasons.<\/p>\n

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\u201cGiven that he spent more time in Boston than someone like Ray Allen, I think he has a pretty strong case, especially if this Celtics era only ends up with one championship,\u201d Robb said. \u201cIf Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown make another couple of Finals runs without the big man, it may be easier to leave him out. However, he was a more important part of a title team than a lot of other players already in the Boston rafters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The 39-year-old still doesn\u2019t have a team for the 2025-26 season, but he\u2019s been heavily connected<\/a> to the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n

Horford\u2019s No. 42 may end up in the rafters next to other Celtics legends someday, but the 2007 draft pick could eventually earn an even bigger honor.<\/p>\n

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ESPN national NBA writer Zach Kram<\/a> recently analyzed which 50 modern stars could make the Basketball Hall of Fame down the road and said that Horford is currently \u201con the bubble<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics have had 23 players\u2019 numbers retired and hung from the rafters. Jayson Tatum is almost…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":221695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28878,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-221694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-al-horford","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}