Celtics Wanted To Re-Sign All-Star, Unable To Match Offer

The Boston Celtics were hoping to retain Al Horford in free agency and were preparing to make the moves that would have allowed them to re-sign the center. But a Celtics executive has revealed that despite their best intentions, they were unable to match the offer on the table from another franchise.

The Philadelphia 76ers eventually signed Horford on a three-year deal worth $109 million of which $97 million is guaranteed while the other $12 million is tied to future championships. The Celtics executive admits that losing the center was a big loss, especially on the defensive side.

He believes Horford will be missed but revealed that Brad Stevens is already working on new schemes with the new players who will take his place in the squad. Enes Kanter will be the Celtics’ new starting center, while a Celtics coach has also put the onus on Jayson Tatum to help defensively in the absence of Horford.

“Huge. I mean what else could I say? He and Marcus Smart did everything for us defensively. It’s a big loss on that end. Offensively, we’ll figure it out easier, but we’re going to miss Al’s screening and passing a lot. But Brad (Stevens) is already at work tweaking the schemes for the new guys,” a Celtics executive told Yahoo Sports’ Keith Smith.

“We wanted to keep him. Thought we would keep him. But he got an offer we weren’t comfortable with trying to match. It’s hard to lose Al, especially in the division, but building a roster is about this year and all the other years after. We were ready to make a bunch of moves to allow us to re-sign Al, but that number wasn’t a number we could do.”

The Celtics were believed to be confident of retaining Horford as they did not know of any offers from other franchises but were shocked when the center turned down a chance to re-sign and decided to join their Eastern Conference rivals. Danny Ainge is said to have claimed tampering owing to the ease of the deal but Horford recently laughed it off saying that it was “ridiculous” to make such claims.