Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from Al Horford opting out
By Sam Minton
2. Horford is helping the Celtics
Now things may seem bad, but maybe Al Horford is trying to help the Boston Celtics. If all goes well Horford will be back in Boston. He is one of the more popular players on the team.
The true storybook ending would be Horford retiring with the Celtics and hopefully finally getting a championship. If that is going to happen the Boston Celtics are going to have to make some moves.
Now things aren’t looking good for this scenario. Apparently, talks with Horford have gone sour and it looks like he isn’t coming back to Boston. Still, nothing will be certain until Horford signs on the dotted line.
Horford taking a $10 million discount would help the Celtics a lot.
Horford coming back at a lower number ($20M range) with length (3 years) on the contract would allow Boston to have the full $9.2M midlevel and $3.6M bi-annual exception to use in free agency. C's are still under the tax if both are used and Rozier brought back.
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) June 18, 2019
All signs are pointing to Kyrie Irving leaving so if you want a cheaper point guard option Terry Rozier is your guy. He has proven that when giving the minutes he can perform at a rather high level.
Then you would hope that the Celtics would go out and use the extra money to re-sign a guy like Marcus Morris or find another option for the 2nd unit.
In the end Al Horford may just be doing the Celtics a big favor.