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Tim Bontemps
SAN FRANCISCO — For Al Horford, the decision to leave the Boston Celtics was a hard one after spending seven of his past nine seasons there, including winning the 2024 NBA title — the first of his 18-year journey through the league.
But as Horford contemplated his future this offseason, two things were easy: He knew he wouldn’t retire, and he knew that if he had to leave the Celtics, joining the Golden State Warriors was the obvious thing for him to do.
“It’s a great opportunity to compete and to win at a high level,” Horford said Wednesday in his introductory session with the media at Chase Center. “When I think about the Warriors, I think about Steph [Curry] and Draymond [Green] and Steve Kerr and seeing Jimmy Butler here. What he did in that second half of the season last year after the trade and how they’re playing.
“It wasn’t an easy decision for me to leave Boston, but if there was the place, that was this one, and it happened and I happened to give this opportunity, so I jumped at it.”
The idea of Horford leaving Boston seemed far fetched, at best, when the regular season ended in April. He was fully ensconced in Boston, where he was beloved by the fans and everyone in the organization, his family was a constant presence around the team, and the only question was how much longer Horford would continue his Hall of Fame-worthy career.
But, like so many other things for the Celtics, everything changed when Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles tendon in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks. With Tatum sidelined for the vast majority — if not all — of the 2025-26 campaign, Boston wound up moving on from both Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis in trades this offseason, and saw both Horford and Luke Kornet leave in free agency, as finances helped dictate a complete overhaul of a team that has lorded over the Eastern Conference for the past several years and entered last spring as one of the favorites to win the title.
With the Celtics resetting things, the potential for Horford to move on from Boston became a real possibility. And, when he did, the fit with the Warriors — where he should be a natural fit both defensively and as a floor spacer and connector offensively playing with Curry, Green and Butler in Kerr’s read-and-react system — made sense for both sides.
“It’s huge to not only to have a space 5, but it’s not just any space 5 — it’s Al Horford,” Kerr said Wednesday. “He rebounds, defends, smart, good passer … just watching him today, you can see the fit, how smooth it is. He can play with Draymond, space the floor as a 5, he can play with Trayce (Jackson-Davis), and Trayce can be the dive man and play two bigs with him. He can also play the 5 himself, and we can have a 5-out lineup. So Al’s versatility and the fact he fits in any lineup makes him hugely valuable right away.”
Those same qualities were what made him such a seamless fit with the Celtics over the past several years, where he remained a critical part of Boston’s roster even as he entered his late 30s. But, in a nod to his age and the wear-and-tear on his body, the Celtics were constantly monitoring Horford’s minutes and made sure he didn’t play in any back-to-backs.
Both Horford and Kerr danced around the topic of whether Horford would sit out back-to-backs this season, saying that the medical team would be working with Horford on that moving forward.
The fact that Horford — who agreed to a two-year deal for the $5.7 million taxpayer’s mid-level exception with a player option for next season — was having his intro presser Wednesday, on his second day of training camp, was because his signing, along with several others, had to wait for the restricted free agency of Jonathan Kuminga to come to a conclusion.
Once it did Tuesday night, when Kuminga and the Warriors agreed to a two-year deal, that paved the way for Horford, De’Anthony Melton — who also spoke Wednesday — and others to have their deals wrapped up.
Horford admitted that made for an odd process this summer but said he was happy it was behind him and that he was with the Warriors.
“It was definitely a very odd offseason, just kind of waiting and waiting and seeing what’s going to happen, seeing what’s going to take place,” Horford said. “So just my whole focus was on my training and preparing myself and making sure that I was in the best place for when the season started.”