Horford was brought back by Stevens, but he too, is an Ainge (free agent) guy.
This is not accurate. Ainge’s guy was clearly Kemba over Horford, not giving Brad the chance to have Smart as his PG (which he probably wanted to try after Cryie left—no way Brad really wanted Kemba’s D). If I had to guess, we signed Horford in 2016 to begin with because Brad wanted him (and it was part of the effort to get KD to sign with us). If I had to guess, make Brad the GM after Kyrie leaves, and I suspect we re-sign Horford and start Smart at PG, letting someone else sign the fool’s gold that was Kemba in 2019.
Better still, give Brad everything he wanted back at the start of the 2018 off-season, we still draft Timelord and I bet we deal Kyrie for Kawhi, Kawhi re-signs because of the matched basketball brilliance between Kawhi and Brad and Kawhi’s recognition that JT/JB give him his Big 3 (Clippers cannot match and LA native Paul Pierce talks Kawhi out of thinking LA is everything), we re-sign Horford in 2019 as our elder statesman, we re-sign Hayward in 2020 to be the next Havlicek, and we have one to four titles under our belt by now. Can you imagine having this available today:
Smart/Brogdon
JB/Brogdon
Kawhi/Hayward
JT/Hayward or Horford depending on matchup
Timelord/Horford
Bench: After nearly five years of Brad picking personnel, probably better than what we have today and certainly better than what Brad inherited from Ainge