{"id":38054,"date":"2025-07-04T12:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T12:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/38054\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T12:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T12:31:10","slug":"lakers-remain-in-strong-pursuit-of-celtics-nba-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/38054\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers \u2018Remain In Strong Pursuit\u2019 Of Celtics\u2019 NBA Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a whirlwind couple of months for the Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n<p>Boston\u2019s franchise player, Jayson Tatum, lost his 2025-26 season to an Achilles tear on May 12 at Madison Square Garden, simultaneously ending Boston\u2019s repeat hopes in an instant. The Tatum-less Celtics fought bravely against the New York Knicks in the second round and pushed the series to six games before ultimately falling.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens has sent Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers and Kristaps Porzingis to the Atlanta Hawks in cost-cutting moves.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the Celtics might be on the verge of losing another one of their pillars from the 2024 championship season.<\/p>\n<p>Per Forbes\u2019 Evan Sidery, the Los Angeles Lakers are going after Al Horford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven after signing Deandre Ayton, the Lakers remain in strong pursuit of Al Horford,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/esidery\/status\/1940529006149095914\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sidery wrote<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cIdeally, Los Angeles wants to add a pick-and-roll lob threat alongside a stretch-five. Signing Ayton and Horford would certainly accomplish that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Celtics fans would be devastated to see Horford donning the Lakers\u2019 purple and gold.<\/p>\n<p>At 39 years old, however, the free agent Horford would likely only be interested in joining a contender, something the Celtics currently are not. Speculation is swirling that Horford will either join the Lakers, Golden State Warriors, or retire.<\/p>\n<p>Could this really be it for Horford and Boston?<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Why wouldn\u2019t Horford consider sitting out a year and returning to the Celtics in 2026-27, joining a healthy Tatum and Jaylen Brown for one more shot at glory?<\/p>\n<p>These are valid questions, but unfortunately for Horford, Father Time is probably the main variable driving his free agent decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a whirlwind couple of months for the Boston Celtics. Boston\u2019s franchise player, Jayson Tatum, lost his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28878,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-38054","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\/38054","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=38054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}