Considering all that the Boston Celtics have been through over the past several years, it’s easy to forget that there was a point in time where Al Horford may have been the team’s most consequential player. Joining the Celtics from Atlanta in the summer of 2016, Horford was — at the time — the biggest free agent signing in franchise history, lending legitimacy to a scrappy young Celtics roster and signaling a new push towards contention after the end of the franchise’s “Big Three” era.
Horford is one of the league’s stalwarts. He now ranks as the seventh oldest player in the league, and of the players above him on that list, only LeBron James and Chris Paul were tasked with more responsibility this past season.