{"id":612950,"date":"2026-02-20T04:18:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/612950\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T04:18:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:18:22","slug":"warriors-al-horford-drops-mysterious-statement-on-celtics-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/612950\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors\u2019 Al Horford Drops Mysterious Statement on Celtics Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al Horford parted ways with the Boston Celtics<\/a> following the 2025 NBA<\/a> Playoffs. In NBA free agency, the veteran center signed with the Golden State Warriors<\/a>. It was the second time he left the Celtics in his career.<\/p>\n

There were no hard feelings from the Celtics. At the time, it was understood that the Celtics had to go through major changes while dealing with Jayson Tatum\u2019s Achilles injury.<\/p>\n

The 2025-2026 NBA season was thought to be a gap year for the Celtics. They might be just competitive enough to make the playoffs, but if they struggled and ended up in a lottery situation, then nobody would\u2019ve been surprised.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The assumption was that Horford would leave for the Warriors to join a sure contender. As the Celtics and the Warriors met on Thursday night coming out of the break, the two clubs were on different terms. The Warriors are in the Western Conference\u2019s Play-In picture, while the Celtics are top three in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

For Horford, it looks like a bad move from a basketball standpoint, but the veteran center claimed that his decision to leave wasn\u2019t all about basketball.<\/p>\n

“The decision, it’s something that’s deeper than just the basketball stuff,\u201d Horford told reporters on Thursday<\/a>. \u201cIt’s something that at some point I’ll share with people, but for me, it felt like it was the time for me to go elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horford joined the Celtics for the first time in 2016, after spending many years with the Atlanta Hawks. He had a successful three-year run, but he left in free agency, joining the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019. Horford received a generous offer from the Celtics\u2019 rival.<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/p>\n

The new landing spot didn\u2019t help Horford maintain the success he had in Boston. After 67 games and a short-lived playoff run, Horford was traded in the offseason to the Oklahoma City Thunder. He was limited to 28 games that year before reuniting with the Celtics for the 2021-2022 season.<\/p>\n

His four-year stint in Boston was an excellent run. Horford didn\u2019t remain a full-time starter on the back-end of his second stint, but he was critical in helping the Celtics win an NBA Championship in 2024. Once again, something went wrong when it was time to negotiate a new deal.<\/p>\n

While Horford won\u2019t reveal the root of the issues just yet, he made it clear that the concerns haven\u2019t changed his thoughts on retiring with the Celtics when that time comes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as the end of my career, I don\u2019t know. I always keep that open. It would definitely be a privilege to [retire in Boston]. I\u2019m obviously trying to focus on finishing out this year,\u201d Horford finished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Al Horford parted ways with the Boston Celtics following the 2025 NBA Playoffs. In NBA free agency, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[869,7,75,164,6,11],"class_list":{"0":"post-612950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-al-horford","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-golden-state-warriors","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116101036490873310","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}