Boston Celtics: 2 realistic trade destinations for Al Horford
By Mark Nilon
Boston Celtics trade partner No. 1) Houston Rockets
To put it lightly, there are two major reasons why Al Horford could, and most likely will prove to be a trouble to trade away this season: he has a ridiculously inflated contract and is by no means living up to it.
When the Philadelphia 76ers initially signed him to a four-year, $109 million deal back in the summer of 2019, it was perceived as a bad signing, and this was when coming off of a rather solid season by the, then, 32-year-old.
Now, at age 35 and putting forth one of the worst seasons of his career, his $27 million salary has grown to look far worse than initially thought, and now, as a result, the Boston Celtics are going to have to get creative if they wish to deal away the veteran big.
Luckily, there are still a few teams that could be willing to bite the bullet on his contract, and one of them just happens to be the Rockets.
In the early stages of a full-fledged rebuild since trading away James Harden early into last year’s campaign, Houston is looking towards a long-term youth movement and, in turn, is looking to offload some of their remaining big-time contracts.
Now yes, with this statement it may make one question why we believe a guy like Horford would be mentioned here being he’s owed upwards of $53.5 million combined between this year and the end of next.
However, what one may not realize is that his deal for next season is only partially guaranteed, which means the Rockets could then exchange more longer-term contracts of their own and rid themselves of any cap casualties as soon as next season.
One player, in particular, that Houston may be interested in offloading is Eric Gordon who, perfectly enough, is a player that many believe the Celtics should consider pursuing at the deadline to help bolster their bench rotation.
Should this prove to be the case, and the C’s are actually interested in trading for the savvy sixth-man, they likely could find it easy to make salaries work if they attach Horford in a deal.