Celtics still feeling Al Horford's impact even after his departure

Fans at TD Garden on Wednesday for Celtics vs. Warriors likely won’t get the full spectacle they would’ve hoped to see when they bought tickets for Al Horford’s prospective return to the place where he helped win an NBA Championship. Horford, who strained his calf last Friday, didn’t join the Dubs for their six-game road trip, meaning he’ll miss out on a warm welcome from the Garden faithful.

Sure, there’s a conglomerate of Celtics fans that may be bitter about the 39-year-old opting to sign elsewhere for a second time over the summer, but that’s where the bitterness stops. Everyone who’s spoken about Horford both before and after he left has had nothing but glowing reviews.

The man who, back in 2023 Jayson Tatum called his “favorite teammate of all time,” made quite the impression on those whom he shared a locker room with during his second stint in Boston from 2021-2025. 

"Al is probably the best teammate I've ever had, [that] a lot of us ever had," Derrick White echoed on White Noise podcast back in November. "And he just cares so much about you as a person, just always just checking in on you, seeing how you're doing, celebrating your successes."

Horford showed his teammates how to handle the day-to-day

For some, like Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser, Horford’s daily attention to detail and commitment to his health provided the blueprint for what it takes to have a successful, prolonged career in the NBA.

“He’s just the ultimate professional,” Hauser told White during a guest appearance on his podcast. “When I was trying to figure out why he’s been in the league forever, I watched him from afar my rookie year, a lot. His routine. He’s time efficient, always getting treatment, always watching film, and then he’s always reliable on the court. You always know what to expect from Al on the court.”

By the time Horford’s time in Boston came to an end, both players had grown from 24-year-old members of the “stay ready” crew to real rotation players on the 61-win Celtics of the 2024-25 season. Their roles, of course, have only expanded further in the time since his departure with Pritchard and Hauser starting 47 and 39 games, respectively.

"Unbelievable vet, great teammate," Pritchard gleamed last month in San Francisco ahead of Boston's matchup against Horford and the Warriors. "Obviously, [an] unbelievable player, but I learned a lot [from] how he approaches his everyday, and how he's been able to last as long as he has in the league."

Development and commitment to the work have enabled both Pritchard and Hauser to each average career-highs in points, rebounds, assists, and minutes (not to mention their defensive improvements). 

"There's a lot of advice, but it's just really seeing how he moves," Pritchard reiterated when asked if there was any specific piece of advice he received from Horford that stuck with him. "His day-to-day, like how he approaches, his mindset, his work ethic."

Pritchard’s work ethic has been well-documented. His one-on-one workouts during the summer when he takes on a gauntlet made up of high-level basketball players who are willing to spend their day simply trying to stop him from scoring have become famous. They’ve also helped him become the best isolation scorer in the NBA (of any player with at least 100 isolation possessions) with 1.18 points per possession.

Horford mentored Neemias Queta ahead of his breakout season

Horford’s impact was felt differently amongst different players, of course. Neemias Queta, who spent the last two seasons learning from the five-time All-Star, has seamlessly made the leap from fourth-stringer to starting center this year. He, like both Hauser and Pritchard, has found his place as a pro in Boston.

Queta credited some of the conversations he’d had with Horford and vet’s willingness to answer all questions during their time as teammates, in preparing him for the starting role ahead of this season.

"He's been in the league a long time,” Queta said of Horford at September’s Media Day at the Auerbach Center. “There's not many things he hasn't seen in this league. Just having that brain to talk to and to ask him questions about stuff that I could learn from him [was helpful].”

The Portuguese big man joined the Celtics on a two-way contract in 2023 after being waived by the Sacramento Kings. Since then, he’s shown improvement every year, earning progressively more playing time with each passing season. He’s played more total minutes in 2025-26 (1,609) than in his first four seasons combined (1,345), and is averaging career-highs across the board.

“It’s a lot of responsibility to be a starting center, to play those type of minutes, everything that it requires,” Horford told the Boston Herald last month. “Neemi really worked in the offseason, and they figured it out over there. And he’s — he’s just been really good. He’s been consistent. He’s been helping them win. I’m not looking even at the numbers; I just look at results, and the fact that he’s having an impact and he’s doing those things, I’m just very proud of him when I see that.”

Queta’s most significant improvement, however, has come on defense. Once a jumpy, undisciplined defender, the 26-year-old now plays an anchoring role in the Celtics’ fifth-ranked defense (111.8 defensive rating). Queta’s positioning and understanding of how he fits into the larger team-oriented scheme can’t be understated in its impact on his leap.

It’s also an area in which he looked to Horford for inspiration.

“He’s also been a big that learned to play defense at a high level,” Queta pointed out. “I think that was the main key [for me], figuring out how to be a sustainable defensive presence. So I was consistently asking him questions about things like that and he helped me a lot to develop.”

The Celtics’ defensive rating is five points better when Queta is on the floor for them, compared to their average.

Horford was a key voice in support of Joe Mazzulla

Horford’s impact spans beyond the Celtics’ players, too. It turns out, he was a loud voice of support for head coach Joe Mazzulla during his early days in charge of the team.

Mazzulla took over the reins in Boston right before training camp in the fall of 2022, after Ime Udoka’s coaching tenure came to an abrupt ending that summer. The Celtics were coming off of an NBA Finals run where they came up short of their ultimate goal of winning an 18th NBA title. They had just reinforced the roster by adding the eventual NBA Sixth Man of the Year, Malcolm Brogdon, into the fold.

The pressure couldn’t have been much higher.

So, when the Celtics ultimately fell short of rereaching the NBA Finals that spring, after they failed to complete a historic 0-3 comeback in the Eastern Conference Finals against the eighth-seeded Miami Heat, the external criticisms of Mazzulla grew loud. The fanbase made him the scapegoat for the team’s inability to close either of the first two games of that series.

Yet, internally, he never lost the support of the organization.

"At the end of the day, just grateful that I got to coach him, but more grateful,” Mazzulla said of Horford last month at Chase Center. “He's obviously, to me, a Hall-of-Famer, and he's one of the guys when I first got the job that he had my back. And I think that says a lot about who he is as a veteran."

The following June, the Celtics went on to lift the elusive 18th Larry O’Brien Trophy. Nearly two years later, he’s led a team that very few believed in, to the second spot in the East with just over a month of regular-season play remaining. Mazzulla also holds the highest winning percentage of any coach in league history, having won 72.3% of his first 314 games in charge of the Cs. The majority of his doubters have been silenced as the Rhode Island native has become one of the most beloved figures in New England sports.

It’s a shame that Horford won’t be in Boston for Golden State’s sole trip to the Commonwealth this season. The love and respect his former teammates have for him was on full display when the Cs opened their post All-Star road trip in San Francisco. There were plenty of hellos and hugs to go around.

Though Horford hasn’t directly factored into the winning equation of this season’s Celtics team, his fingerprints are still all over its foundation.