When the Golden State Warriors picked up the Horford, they must have remembered game 1 of the NBA finals of 2022. That night, in front of a multitude of stunned Center Chase, Horford fell 26 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists in their heads.
During all that playoff race, he averaged 12 points, 9.3 rebounds and fired 48% of three. This is how a championship caliber player is seen.
Fast advance to the Playoffs 2025: 8 points, 6 rebounds, firing 47% from the field and 40% of three. Still efficient. Keep making winning moves. But here is the question: what are the warriors really at 39? And will it be better than they expected from Kevon Looney?
Looney had a decade of loyalty, three championships, perhaps the great most reliable man in the recent history of the Warriors … and yet it was reduced to 9.3 minutes per game in the playoffs against Houston. Two minutes in a crucial game 6. When he went to New Orleans, he was brutally honest about it.
“When you try the first four, five years, very good, great. But after 10 years, it’s like, it’s fine. Or trust me or not,” Looney told Marcus Thompson II. When Steve Kerr turned to the rookie Quinten Post about a championship center tested in the playoffs, the organization indicated that they needed something different. Enter the Horford: the opposite approach to solve the same problem.
The surface level analysis is written to itself: five stretching that can shoot, defend multiple positions, high intellectual basketball coefficient, pedigree of the championship. But that loses what makes this really important.
Horford averaged 9 points and 6.2 rebounds in the 42/36/90 shooting divisions last season. It is not exactly surprising. But Brad Stevens said something that matters more: “If you take all the joy that each of us experienced to win (the championship) last year, I think we would all say a part of that joy, if not a large part, it was for Al.”
Jayson Tatum called him “one of the best teammates I’ve had at any level.” Luke Kornet went further: “Honestly, the best I’ve seen.” For a Warriors team that has just observed its central fracture with Looney Gone and the Kumina contract creating tension, Horford’s veteran stability could be the most underestimated part of this movement.
Thirty -nine years. DecMonovena NBA season. Those are not just numbers, some could say flashing warning signs. But Horford’s game has never trusted athletics. He is playing 27.7 minutes per game, making the right readings, hitting the three open, protecting the edge when it matters. Its 2025 playoff efficiency suggests that the touch of shooting does not go anywhere.
Draymond Green revealed strategic thinking: “When you are in the center, you are involved in each play because you are anchoring the defense … that can sometimes be a lot.” Horford takes that charge of Green and gives Steve Kerr alignment flexibility that did not exist when Looney was being bank.
Is it really an update about Looney? You are comparing different stages of organizational philosophy. Looney at his best was exactly what those warriors needed to be reliable, durable and perfectly understand the system. But the version of last season, with an average of 5.7 points and 5.7 rebounds while watching his role evaporate, was not the experience of Looney to which we were accustomed.
Horford brings something that Looney could not: spacing. It is a 36% legitimate shooter of three points that receives defensive attention beyond the arch. That matters when you are creating driving lanes for those who become the secondary score option behind Steph Curry.
The Horford is not the Savior. But it is solving specific problems with which warriors need support: interior presence, spacing in floor, veteran leadership.
If Horford remains healthy, shoots 38% of three and gives Golden State 24 minutes of intelligent and winning basketball at night, this movement will look bright in April. If your body breaks down or the Warriors cannot compete anyway, it will be remembered as a desperate veteran team that tries to squeeze another year of the Steph Curry era.
There is no average term here. Or this works and the Warriors are back in the conversation of the title, or does not, and we are seeing the final chapter of a real -time dynasty.
Boston’s Horford departure tells you all about his priorities. When Jayson Tatum fell with an Achilles injury, he saw that his championship window closed. He did not retire. He went to Golden State because he believes that at 39 playing with Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green give him another legitimate opportunity in a ring.
That belief could be the most important thing it brings.
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