From Santo Domingo to the N.B.A. Finals, Al Horford Is at Home

“I do believe everything happens for a reason,” Horford said. “This was a time for them to grow and also for me to grow as well. Me getting a different perspective and now appreciating even more what I have here.”

When Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations and the team’s previous head coach, called to tell Horford about the trade, Horford was in a car with his family. They all started screaming with excitement.

“I think it kind of feels like home to him,” Anna Horford said of Boston. “This is the first place he’s played where his kids were old enough to be aware of being at games. Ean was just a baby in Atlanta. Him going to school here, making friends here, his other kids as well. This was the first place that really felt like home as an entire family.”

Home is a particularly meaningful concept to someone as transient as Horford has been.

In Santo Domingo, his mother, Arelis Reynoso, was a sports journalist and occasionally took him on assignment.

“I felt like I was really independent from a really young age over there,” Horford said. “It was just very special, that time with my mom.”

He moved to Michigan for high school, then went to college at Florida, where he won two national championships with two other players who had notable N.B.A. careers: Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/sports/basketball/al-horford-boston-celtics-nba-finals.html