With a first-year head coach in Ime Udoka, that is a nice added value for Boston when it comes to their veteran big man. He is obviously the old man of the kid's club that is Boston's locker room, someone who the younger Celtics know they can rely on whenever they need a veteran's perspective. Horford at the five has let Grant Williams play some fill-in four, and the third-year forward has given Boston some of the best shooting of his career.Īnd then there is the leadership that Horford provides as well. The Celtics are 3-3 without Williams this year, thanks in large part to Horford giving them some incredibly important minutes. He's already missed a handful of games this season, which in years past, would have severely hampered Boston's cause.īut this year, Horford has saved the day when Williams hasn't been available. Robert Williams is the big man of the present and the future, but as we know with Williams, he tends to get banged up a bit. His stats are certainly a welcome addition to Boston's frontcourt, but it's the availability and dependability of Horford that has the Celtics in a much better spot in 2021. So those numbers, and his numbers overall, have returned to normal a bit over the last few weeks.īut Horford's impact on Boston goes much deeper than what he does on the score sheet. Horford was putting up some truly insane block numbers to start the year, averaging 2.6 per game over his first 10 games of the season. He's done it all while still owning the most dashing set of eyes in the NBA. He has a double-double in eight of his 18 games played, including a 17-11 showing in Sunday night's win over the Toronto Raptors. The 35-year-old has averaged 12.5 points off 45 percent shooting to go with 8.3 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game. That would be the shoulders of Al Horford, who has been rejuvenated by his second stint with the Celtics and has turned in an incredible season thus far. With Walker, there was always a carrot dangling that maybe, just maybe, he would be a healthy and spry guard again, one that was able to impact the Celtics the way he did his first season in Boston.īut that was never going to be the case, and weight of Kemba's health is no longer on the team's shoulders. And the Celtics did get something in return for Walker, a pretty important set of shoulders that has been a wonderful surprise for the team in 2021. Sure, it cost Brad Stevens a first-round pick to get Walker off the books, but it subtracted one of the team's many (many, many, many) issues of the past few years. It also highlights just how right the Celtics were to do anything and everything they could to move on from the final years of Walker's max contract over the offseason. It's another unfortunate turn in the final stages of Walker's career. BOSTON (CBS) - The honeymoon between Kemba Walker and the New York Knicks is over, with head coach Tom Thibodeau announcing Monday that the team is taking the point guard out of its rotation.
0 kommentar(er)
