Sep 7, 2026 7 min read

The New Al Horford?

I can tell you that the differences between how I feel about Al Horford and Paul George are like night and day, but perhaps George can be good enough to be the new Al Horford. (Image Credit: Al. B Sure "Nite and Day")

I've been a real hard time coming around to the fact that Paul George is on the Celtics now. I'll be honest – I can't ever remember liking Paul George. Which is notable, because he's a "Paul," and so am I, and honestly, there aren't enough of us. Paul's should stick together. Paul George and I even once shared the cover of ESPN the Magazine. Sort of:

Paul George on the cover the March 3, 2014 issue of ESPN the Magazine. An article by me entitled "Dwyane Wade is the worst three-point shooter ever!" also made the cover. — The March 3, 2014 cover of *ESPN the Magazine*. My article was the one about Dwyane Wade. Curiously, they didn't put my name on the cover like they did for Nate Silver and Pablo S. Torre. Almost like they're a bigger deal than me, lol. Side note -- look at how young Paul George is here. We were all so young once!

But Paul George has never really been my cup of tea.

He asked out of Indiana when they didn't go out and trade for Anthony Davis. Then he and Kawhi Leonard orchestrated their team up in Los Angeles. Neither move was really all that great for George, if we're being honest, and both definitively rubbed me the wrong way. Those Indiana teams were really good and fun. Just on a basic level, he made the Conference Finals twice in seven seasons with the Pacers, and once in seven seasons with the Thunder and Clippers, and once in the nine seasons since leaving Indiana total. Maybe he made more endorsement money in LA? Who knows, it wouldn't surprise me if the Clippers also were funneling him money they weren't supposed to.

Either way, his career has floundered since he landed in LA. He's only played 60 games in the seven seasons since he landed in LA, and has only averaged 48.7 games player per season since arriving there. Through it all, he's been coddled. Outside of his rookie season, the only six games he's played in in which he wasn't a starter are the six games he played coming off of his big injury in the 2014-2015 season. This feeling has continued as he migrates to Boston – it just seems like he'll be a starter here, too. But George has clearly entered a new phase of his career. Let's take a look at some of his stats, summarized by team he's played for, so we can see the difference between his time in Philly and the rest of his career:

During his time in Philly, he shot less, rebounded less, and scored less. He had the ball less, and he took a larger percentage of his shots from three-point land than at any other point of his career. And he was just, in general, far less valuable. In other words, he's no longer a star. Now he's definitively just a role player. In the 2026 playoffs, while he played well, there were absolutely zero times when you felt like Paul George was taking the game over. It was definitively Tyrese Maxey's team at all points, except for perhaps the third quarter of Game 5, when Joel Embiid forcefully yet mercifully ended Nikola Vučević's career.

It is with this acceptance that I am finally trying to come to terms with the Paul George experience. And I started wondering, is the reason that Brad Stevens seems so excited about having George on the team because he envisions him as the new Al Horford?

Now, to be clear, no one can actually replace Al Horford, particularly in our hearts and minds. Al Horford is the man who ended Giannis Antetokounmpo's career. Wait, don't tell me you don't remember this? OK, fine, let's take a quick look back, because you not remembering this moment really doesn't sit well with me:

The title of this picture is "Father of Five Ends MVP's Career":

Reminder: Giannis has only won one playoff game since this moment, and the *only* reason he did is because Jrue Holiday picked Marcus Smart's pocket twice in < 10 seconds.

Get that man a damn ci-gar. I think I've mentioned this before, but that is literally my favorite YouTube video of all-time. So, you know, it'd be tough for Paul George – a player I don't even like – to become as beloved as Al Horford – a player we were really sad about leaving Boston not once, but twice. However, it'd be an easier road for George than trying to replace Jaylen Brown, who is conservatively one of the best 150 players in NBA history, and a legendary person and Celtic. For instance, I can't imagine Paul George showing up to a basketball clinic two months after he was traded the way JB did two weekends ago in Westford.

Anyway, if you squint you can see similarities between George and Horford. Both are listed as 6'8". On both NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com, Big Al is listed as 240 lbs. On Basketball-Reference.com, George is listed as 220 lbs., but on NBA.com, he's now listed as 230 lbs. That doesn't really compute in my mind, because George feels lankier than Horford, but the measurements say they're essentially the same guy.

Both players are reliable from the free throw line and the three-point line. In Horford's second stint with Boston, he pulled down a similar (but greater) number of defensive rebounds per game as did George the past two seasons in Philly.

Having said that, it's not anywhere close to a perfect comparison. I don't want to force this. Horford has been a center or power forward his whole career. George has almost always been a small forward, and has only recently become more of a power forward. Comparing those two stints again, nearly 30% of George's shots were from the mid-range, and for Horford it was between three and 11%. It was around five percent in the 2023-2024 championship season. George would have to start taking a lot more shots at the rim to truly be like Horford, and that doesn't seem likely. George's defensive output is characterized more by steals, and Horford's more by blocks.

The most important difference? Al Horford plays basketball. Despite the fact that the Celtics managed him extra carefully in his second stint with the team from 2022-2025, and almost never let him play back-to-backs, Horford played 60+ games in all four of those regular seasons. Plus a full workload in the playoffs – he played 73 of a possible 74 playoff games in that span. The C's lost the game he didn't play by 11. Those were Horford's ages 35-38 seasons. George just had his age-35 season. He played 37 games. If you want to give him the benefit of the doubt for his 25-game suspension (I don't, to be clear), you could say that he could have played 62 games. Horford played 69 games in his age-35 season. Again, George has only played 60+ games once in the past seven seasons, and that was so very, very, very conveniently his walk season with LA when he needed to show he was worthy of a new contract. The Clippers never really bought all that, but it only takes one team, and Philly was that team.

So the shape of their play is likely to be different, and the number of games they play is likely to be different, but I feel like expectations for Paul George should be Horford's 2022-2025 averages of 9.4 points per game, 6.6 rebounds per game, and 2.8 assists per game. If he can do it on .468/.392/.842 shooting like Horford did, even better! George would have to bring up his shooting averages to get there, but if defenses are not keying on him because he has the ball even less, and is shooting less, ostensibly removing the grenades and bad shots from his shot diet, and just taking in-rhythm and wide-open shots? Then maybe!

Like Horford, the Celtics will almost certainly forbid George from playing back-to-backs. I believe the C's have 16 such games this season, which would bring George's max games played down to 66. If he can only manage to miss another 10 – so say, 56 games played – that would be great. And if he can do it while imparting some veteran and emotional wisdom, well that's the whole Horford package. The C's clearly aren't counting on George to be the lone person dispensing said wisdom, otherwise they wouldn't have signed Mike Conley. But a lot of players clearly look up to George, so hopefully he can be a genuine enough guy to be a positive influence. I'm not exactly counting on it, but again, maybe!

Paul George is not replacing Jaylen Brown, and anyone going into the season with that assumption is setting themselves up for continuous disappointment. Fortunately, I don't think anyone is. Looking at how efficient Al Horford was in his role, it's not exactly a guarantee that George can replace his production either. But even with borderline Hall of Fame players like George and Horford, sometimes it's about fit. During Horford's 2020-2021 season in Oklahoma City, it looked like his career was over. Celtics fans were excited when Brad Stevens re-acquired him, but mostly in the sense of relief that they felt that Kemba Walker (who would only play another 46 NBA games after the trade) had been offloaded. That Horford turned right back into a productive, borderline All-Star player (his 7.6 Win Shares ranked 23rd in the NBA for the 2021-2022 season) as a 35-year-old was a bit of a miracle. But the Celtics knew how to use him and make him effective. Perhaps they will be able to use George in similar ways and coax a similar revival out of him.