It was supposed to be the signing of the off-season. Al Horford’s 4 year, $113 million dollar contract, was said to be the “stepping stone to a championship.” Many thought that because of the signing of the big man, it meant Kevin Durant was coming next. However, it did not turn out that way and the Boston Celtics ended up with only one of the two big name free agents. Even without Kevin Durant, the Celtics fans had high expectations for the upcoming team. Even the Las Vegas Super Book had the Celtics as the fifth highest odds in the NBA to win the championship. The prediction seemed a little high for a team that had only gained an aging stretch-4, and had lost one of their best role players in Evan Turner. Expectations had became extremely high for the young team, even though there was not much evidence for the turnaround.
There are two major problems I have with the Al Horford signing. The first the main issue is that he is just not that good. As a role player, I would have not minded the signing of Horford. He is a big man who can shoot, plays solid defense and facilitates the basketball well. He has all of the skills to be role player for a champion. The issue is he is being expected to take on the “star” role in Boston. This label consists of constantly leading the team in scoring, being a team leader and being all around one of the top players on the team. Horford on the other hand, averages less than 20 points a game and has questionable leadership qualities as he as a very soft spoken player. Considering him the second best player on the Celtics, only to Isaiah Thomas shows the Celtics are not ready to compete with the other power house teams of the league. Horford is nothing more than a quality role player.
My second issue with the Horford signing is the contract. Four years for $113 million is considered relatively cheap for a star player in with the new NBA salary cap. But that is exactly the issue. It is a simple case of a role player, being paid like a star. A solid starter in the NBA should not be making as much money as a top 10 player in the league. Of course, it does not handcuff them from signing another free agent, but it does make things harder. Even though the contract is not his fault, it is still a big problem that comes with signing him.
The main point is that the Boston Celtics fell into the same trap as many others in the league who saw the salary cap rising and immediately overspent on average players. Deals like $64 million for Timofey Mozgov and $153 million of Mike Conley headlined the list of bone-head deals made in the off-season. The Celtics did not seem like they would fall into the trap as most of the free agents were off the board. But on July 3rd, the Celtics pulled the trigger on the signing, giving a max contract to an aging power forward, expecting him to be a starting center. I do not buy the excuse that the Celtics “needed to do something.” This was a rookie mistake made by a veteran general manager of falling into the trap of getting excited and over-paying players. Now the Celtics must work around this deal if they want some type of shot of making it past the first round of the playoffs.
