Horford agrees to deal with Celtics

ATLANTA — It actually started in the spring of 2007 ... nearly three months before the Hawks made Al Horford the 3rd overall pick of the NBA Draft.

On the final day of March and the first couple of days of April, the Florida Gators blew through UCLA and Ohio State on their way to a second consecutive national championship.

One of the stars of those Gators championship teams was Horford.  The site of that second straight title ... Atlanta.

That weekend at the Georgia Dome was the start of a long run of consistent, solid basketball by Horford in this city.

Now, he's taking the Boston Celtics $113 million offer and heading to New England.

It's hard not to fondly remember the 2008 NBA Playoffs.

That Celtics team had won 66 games and was supposed to cruise through the Eastern Conference's first round, but the 37-45 Hawks, armed with a rookie named Al Horford, took Boston to the seven-game limit.

That was the first postseason appearance for the Hawks franchise since 1999.

It hasn't missed one since.

The one constant has been Horford.

Nine straight seasons in the playoffs.

Only the San Antonio Spurs have a longer current run in the NBA.

The organization appeared to make a choice when it agreed to sign hometown star Dwight Howard to a 3-year, $70.5 million contract on the first day of free agency.

Did that signal to Horford that he wasn't valued as much as he thought he should be by the team he'd quietly led for nearly a decade?  Only he knows.

But there has to be some reason why he passed up a reported extra $25 or so million to stay with the home team.

Hawks fans (and management) should know that just because a player doesn't verbally and emotionally express himself on the court like a Kevin Garnett, it doesn't make that player any less intense or fiercely competitive.

Could he have driven to the basket more?  Rebounded more?  Played bigger during those nine consecutive playoff runs?  Sure.  But no Hawk is immune from criticism from past playoff failures.

Remember, there is only one champion crowned in late June.

Horford was a key component to those Florida back-to-back national champions.  The Hawks were keen enough to realize it by making him the first player picked after Greg Oden and Kevin Durant in 2007.

They'd better hope they haven't forgotten what he brings to the table just because he doesn't shout it from the rooftop himself.

Cox Media Group