{"id":79532,"date":"2025-07-15T07:52:42","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T07:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=79532"},"modified":"2025-07-15T07:53:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T07:53:22","slug":"warriors-connected-to-2-time-all-star-60m-center-as-al-horford-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=79532","title":{"rendered":"Warriors Connected to 2-Time All-Star, $60M Center as Al Horford Alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1795732861-e1700383380426.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1795732861-e1700383380426.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1795732861-e1700383380426.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1795732861-e1700383380426.jpg?quality=35&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Warriors Connected to 2-Time All-Star, $60M Center as Al Horford Alternative\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" \/><\/figure>\n<div>\n<p>Getty<\/p>\n<p>Al Horford, formerly of the Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Golden State Warriors now have serious reason to sweat the possibility they may lose former Boston Celtics center Al Horford to a competing franchise in free agency.<\/p>\n<p>Marc J. Spears of Andscape appeared on the Monday, July 14 edition of \u201cNBA Today\u201d on ESPN and named three other teams that pose a threat to the Warriors\u2019 acquisition of Horford.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Golden State, obviously, expected him to sign last week. He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>The [Los Angeles] Lakers, Milwaukee [Bucks] and Atlanta [Hawks], I believe, are also interested in a nearly 40-year-old guy who also has retirement on the table.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s still considering retiring. He\u2019s not in any hurry. He\u2019s got a sixth kid coming on the way. He lives in Atlanta and Boston in the offseason. But I\u2019m hearing that whether it\u2019s Golden State, and to a lesser extent the Lakers, being away from the family that far isn\u2019t going to be in that decision.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Golden State made Horford its primary target heading into the summer, while the team continues to wait out the situation with restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga. If Horford lands elsewhere or decides to hang em\u2019 up after 18 years in the NBA, the Warriors will need to find another option to procure the center they so desperately need.<\/p>\n<p>Free agency may no longer be the best bet if Horford removes himself from the board, or some competing team does. In that case, the Dubs may need to turn to the trade market.<\/p>\n<p>One possibility there is Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Warriors, Bulls Trade Flipping Jonathan Kuminga for Nikola Vucevic May Have Legs<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_5369212\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-1456651833-e1748317745520.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=782\" alt=\"Warriors Connected to 2-Time All-Star, $60M Center as Al Horford Alternative\" width=\"782\" height=\"439\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5369212\" data-lazy-load=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5369212\">Getty Nikola Vucevic of the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Nekias Duncan of \u201cThe Dunker Spot\u201d podcast on the Yahoo Sports network appeared on the Monday, July 14 edition of \u201cThe Zach Lowe Show\u201d podcast, which is part of The Ringer network.<\/p>\n<p>The two discussed the connection between Horford\u2019s persisting free agency, Kuminga\u2019s restricted free agency and a potential Warriors trade with the Bulls swapping Kuminga for Vucevic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve just been waiting on Kuminga to Chicago,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting on [Vucevic] to Golden State for, it feels like, months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lowe countered immediately, saying that he doesn\u2019t see such a deal developing between the Warriors and Bulls this summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think [Vucevic] to Golden State is a thing,\u201d Lowe responded. \u201cI don\u2019t think it is a thing. I\u2019m not sure it ever really was a thing \u2014 on this current contract, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Nikola Vucevic Better, More Expensive Player Than Al Horford at This Point in Respective Careers<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_5336084\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2198454801-e1745179795756.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=782\" alt=\"Warriors Connected to 2-Time All-Star, $60M Center as Al Horford Alternative\" width=\"782\" height=\"440\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5336084\" data-lazy-load=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5336084\">GettyNikola Vucevic of the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Vucevic is entering the final season of a three-year, $60 million contract that pays him $21.5 million in 2025-26.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time All-Star will play next season, the 15th of his NBA career, at 35 years old. That means the Warriors would get a player four years Horford\u2019s junior if they traded for Vucevic instead. Furthermore, if that move was a sign-and-trade involving Kuminga, the team would solve its center problem and its Kuminga issue in one deal.<\/p>\n<p>Vucevic, a two-time All-Star, averaged 18.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and 3.5 assists last season \u2014 all well above the output from Horford (9.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists).<\/p>\n<p>Horford will cost less and is a better defender than Vucevic, but Vucevic is the better shooter and floor-spacer, connecting on 40.2% of his 4.4 nightly attempts from behind the 3-point line last year.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State appears to have a two-year window of championship contention remaining, as that is the timeline for the contracts of Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler III and Draymond Green. Vucevic isn\u2019t the perfect fit and he is pricey, especially if the team wants to add more, but it\u2019s all-in time in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n<p>As such, if Horford slips between the Warriors\u2019 proverbial fingers, the time may be right for the Dubs to take a one-year swing on a player like Vucevic \u2014 particularly considering they could clear his salary off the deck following the 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Max Dible covers the NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns. He covered local and statewide news as a reporter for West Hawaii Today and served as news director for BigIslandNow.com and Pacific Media Group&#8217;s family of Big Island radio stations before joining Heavy. More about Max Dible<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Golden State Warriors could trade Jonathan Kuminga to the Chicago Bulls for Nikola Vucevic rather than signing Al Horford in free agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":79536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Warriors Connected to 2-Time All-Star, $60M Center as Al Horford Alternative - News 365<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=79532\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Warriors Connected to 2-Time All-Star, $60M Center as Al Horford Alternative - 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