There’s an opinion circulating regarding Horford being injury prone that should be quashed because it’s false.
During his 14 season NBA career, he’s played in 881 out of 1,129 total games (78%). In the 2020-21 season, the Thunder requested his leave to tank redistribute his minutes to the prospects on the team. Removing 2020-21 season, his availability moves to 853/1057 games (81%) and if we limit the sample size to only the last 5 seasons without 2020-21, it goes up to 275/319 (86%) of total games.
An interesting nugget from this is that OKC was 11-17 (39% Win%) with Horford and 11-33 (25% Win%) without him. A +14% Win%, which was the difference between having the 2nd worst record and the 7th this past season. Other than SGA and Dort, last season’s Thunder were built to tank, for him to have that kind of impact while playing a career low 27.9 MPG is amazing.
People seem to be dismissing him as salary fodder for a Kemba salary dump. Well… Al is durable, consistent, impacts winning, and has an old man’s game that ages well. Unlike 3rd options from other teams, he’s steady in the regular season and playoffs, at home and on the road. People are going to be pleasantly surprised by the results when it’s all said and done.