When he was 14 years old, Al Horford moved from the Dominican Republic, where his mother had raised him in Santo Domingo, to Michigan, where his father and four of his half-siblings lived.
“That was so cool,” said Anna Horford, 29, Al’s half-sister. “He helped raise us.”
He took care of his brothers and they played baseball, volleyball or basketball in the yard. Anna remembers Al skipping high school parties to stay with them.
When they grew up and were old enough to go to parties, he would advise them and ask them to be careful and call him if they needed a ride.
“Always like he’s taken on more of a daddy role,” Anna said. “He’s about six years older than the next Horford. He has always been older, and has always led the way in a certain way. I think it’s the same with the Celtics.”
He added: “I joke that he is like the dad of the Celtics team. Because whenever he kind of gets guys in line or when he talks they kind of make sure they listen to him and pay attention to him and give him that respect.”
At the start of this season, Al Horford, 36, was the only Celtics player past 30. The core of the Boston team includes three 20-somethings, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart, who were just beginning their NBA careers six years ago when Horford joined the Celtics.
He left Boston briefly before returning this season and has brought his veteran leadership and stability to a young Celtics. His presence and his play have helped Boston attempt its 18th franchise championship.
“They’re different, they’ve matured, they’re much better,” Horford said of Tatum, Brown and Smart. “This is like your team. It’s like his moment, you know? And I’m just happy to be a part of that.”
When Boston clinched the Eastern Conference championship with a Game 7 victory over the Miami Heat, Horford became the first Dominican player to reach the NBA Finals. In his stint with teams in Atlanta, Boston and Philadelphia, he had played 141 playoff games without reaching the finals, more games than any other player.
The outpouring of enthusiasm he showed as the Celtics celebrated the conference title reflected how much it meant to him. But it also meant a lot to his teammates.
“Nobody deserves it more than this guy to my right, right here, man,” Brown said that night. “His energy and demeanor of him, showing up every day, being professional, taking care of his body, being a leader… I’m proud to share this moment with a veteran, a mentor, a brother, a guy like Al Horford, man.”
The Celtics signed Brown in 2016, just weeks before Horford signed a four-year deal with the team. The following summer, Boston chose Tatum third. Smart was selected sixth overall in the 2014 draft.
Horford spent three years with Boston — two of them with Brown, Tatum and Smart — and the Celtics went to the conference finals twice and lost in the conference semifinals once. He opted out of the final year of his contract in 2019 and joined the 76ers as a free agent.
In December 2020, the 76ers transferred him to the Oklahoma City Thunder, who hardly played him. In June 2021, Boston agreed with Oklahoma to get it back.
“I think everything happens for a reason,” Horford said. “That was a moment for them to mature and also for me to mature, for me to have another perspective and now appreciate what I have here more.”
When Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of football operations and the team’s former head coach, called Horford to inform him of the trade, Horford was in a car with his family. Everyone started screaming with excitement.
“I think it feels like home to him,” Anna Horford said of Boston. “It is the first place he has played where his children were old enough to be aware of being in the games. In Atlanta, Ean was just a baby. That he goes to school here, he is making friends here, and so are his other children. This was the first place that truly felt like home for the whole family.”
Home is a very meaningful concept for someone who has been as itinerant as Horford.
In Santo Domingo, his mother, Arelis Reynoso, was a sports journalist who sometimes wore him when she had a guideline.
“I felt like I was very independent from a very young age there,” Horford said. “It was very special, that time with my mom.”
He moved to Michigan for high school, then went to college in Florida, where he won two national championships with two other players who had notable NBA careers: Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer. The Hawks signed him third in the 2007 draft and while playing for Atlanta he was chosen to play in his first four All-Star games.
There the seeds of his long career were planted.
“I saw his daily habits,” said Kenny Atkinson, the Hawks’ assistant coach when Horford played there. “Al he’s going to be like Nolan Ryan: he’s going to play until he’s 45 years old. He is very impeccable.”
Atkinson helped Horford develop a 3-point shooting game, which also helped his career in a league that has been weeding out tough guys who don’t shoot.
Atkinson is now an assistant at Golden State. He was interviewed the day after Horford scored 26 points and made six 3-pointers in Boston’s win over Golden State in Game 1 of the Finals.
What do you think of the way Horford’s career has endured?
“I hate it,” Atkinson said, undaunted. “But I’m not surprised.”
When he returned to Boston, Horford tried to share with his younger peers the habits he had cultivated over time. They were excited to accept the advice.
“When I see them talk to Al it’s almost like a teacher and a student,” said Juwan Morgan, a third-year forward who signed with Boston just before the end of the regular season. “You can see the respect factor. When Al speaks everyone is silent, they listen because they know it’s for the good of the team.
Horford called it mutual respect.
“Try to be a good example for them,” Horford said. “Try to guide them and just help them. They know what matters to me, that I want to play the right way, do things the right way on the pitch. But also, off the pitch, I want to do things the right way.”
They are the same words Horford uses when talking about his younger siblings and the ways he has been a mentor to them.
“It’s important to me to help them in any way so they can be successful in whatever they choose in life,” Horford said.
It sounds like your child is inheriting that caretaker mentality.
Ean is a sociable 7-year-old boy with thick hair of black curls. He loves basketball and hanging out in the locker room with his dad’s buddies. After Game 1 and Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Al Horford took him by the hand and led him to the podium for an interview. Ean winked at the camera after the first match.