If healthy the team is a lot better, but I worry a great deal about Thomas' hip and Horford's age and I'm just not sure they will be healthy throughout the season. That said, if Boston enters the playoffs healthy, I would expect it to beat every team except Cleveland in the East, and the Cavs series should be closer than last year (Cleveland is a pretty significant favorite in the East in Vegas and for good reason).
Lebron James: 32 years old
Al Horford: 31 years old
If you worry about Hereford's age, I would assume you are also worried about Lebron's age?
Sure. I expect James to take games off and play in the 70-75 game range. Maybe even miss a full week or two like he did a couple of years ago (he played 69 that year which is his career low - aside from the 62 he played in the 66 game season). That said, Horford has a pretty consistent history of missing a lot of games, which James does not have. I mean Horford only played in 68 games last year and has had seasons of 11 (the 66 game season) and 29 games not all that long ago. You expect the guy who has basically always been healthy to be healthier than the guy that is injured a lot.
Horford has had 2 major injuries in his career (both times a pectoral tear), but other than that has been extremely healthy. He's just one year removed from an 82 game season, and (discounting the two years where he tore his pectorals) has averaged ~76 games per year.
Unless you think he's gonna have another major injury, there's no reason to think that he'll miss any significant amount of time. He isn't like Bradley, who has averaged ~64 games per season (not counting his first two years, the first of which he was bad and the second of which was the 66 game season. He played 64/66 games that year, but was injured in the playoffs)
Horford is coming off a 68 game season in which he missed at least 2 back to back games on 3 separate occassions. Though he did play 18 games in the playoffs and was tied with a bunch of players for the most playoff games (I'm not sure that has ever happened before where a team that wasn't in the finals played the same or more playoff games than the two teams that were in the finals).
He missed 9 games due to the concussion (only one in his career, not likely to happen again), one due to his daughter being born (AFIK his wife isn't pregnant this year, so I don't think that will happen again this year), and the other 4 were for minor injuries (and probably will happen again). Nothing suggests that he'll miss even close to that many again.
It'd be one thing if he was missing games due to a recurring injury, or "old man injuries", or taking a long time to recover from his injuries (and no, taking more time off for a concussion doesn't count - that's being cautious, not your body taking a long time to recover), but he hasn't. With the exception of the 2 pectoral tears he's had an extremely healthy career, and if not for Zeller elbowing him in the head during practice we wouldn't even be having this discussion. He isn't Lebron (who besides Lebron is?), but he's not an injury risk or injury prone by any means
Actually once you have a concussion you are infinitely more likely to get another one and for it to be much worse. Concussions have ended many careers. Sure basketball isn't like hockey, football, or the combat sports, but there are collisions and they do happen. I'm not suggesting I believe Horford will get another concussion, but the fact that he missed 9 games because of one, certainly should be a bit concerning on him getting another one.
And I love how you just discount the two pectoral tears like it is nothing to scoff at.
Horford is on the wrong side of 30 and is coming off a season where he missed 14 games (13 due to injury). I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't be concerned about him playing a full season unless they just have blinders on. I hope he plays 75+ games, you might even put the over on it if you were betting, but to just ignore the possibility that he plays under 70 games again is just silly.
I'm neither saying that less than 70 games is impossible or downplaying the seriousness of a pectoral tear. What I am saying is that it's extremely likely that Horford plays 75+ games, and that calling him injury prone based off one year is ridiculous.
The pectoral tears were bad. As is an ACL tear, or meniscus tear, etc. He hasn't had any complications or recurring issues from them, so they really aren't a concern right now. Clearly something made the tears more likely, but I'm no more concerned about his pecs than I was Avery's shoulders post-surgery, or Rondo's ACL post-recovery.
How common are concussions in the NBA? (
just looked it up - looks like an average of ~15, so roughly a 3% chance of any given player getting one). It was bad luck that he got one last year, and even with a higher likelihood of getting another that's still not very likely. It'd be one thing if his style of play was extremely physical or reckless (like Smart or IT), but Horford doesn't exactly have a physical play style. As for taking longer to come back, that seems to have more to do with him being very cautious and making sure he's fully recovered before playing again than the seriousness of his concussions. Ask any Hawk's fan - Horford was very methodical with his recovery from the pectoral tears, and probably could have come back sooner, but made sure he was 100% instead (and it looks like that was the right call)
I think we actually seem to agree, though - him playing 75+ games is more likely than playing less. The issue seems to be that you think I'm saying he will 100% play 75+ games. Of course there's a chance that he gets a major injury and misses a ton of time, or gets another concussion and misses time again. The difference is that I don't think it's much more likely to happen to him than anyone else (except maybe Lebron). And if he doesn't get a major injury (which I think we can agree is by far the more likely scenario), it's unlikely that he misses more than a handful of games.
He's almost guaranteed to play more games than a real injury-prone guy like Bradley, and probably more than Smart, too.