{"id":760063,"date":"2026-06-25T20:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T20:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760063\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T20:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T20:24:16","slug":"warriors-al-horford-agrees-to-new-two-year-deal-for-14-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760063\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors\u2019 Al Horford agrees to new two-year deal for $14 million"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days after adding youth by drafting Michigan\u2019s Yaxel Lendeborg<\/a>, the Golden State Warriors<\/a> agreed to retain their oldest player in center Al Horford<\/a>.\u00a0Horford will decline his $6 million player option for next season and return to the Warriors on a two-year, $14 million contract, league sources confirmed to the Chronicle on Thursday.<\/p>\n

He had until Monday\u2019s deadline to decide about his option for next season. Two other Warriors players, Draymond Green<\/a> and De\u2019Anthony Melton<\/a>, must make a similar decision by Monday.<\/p>\n

Horford, who turned 40 on June 3, will return for his 20th season, a landmark only 12 NBA players have reached. LeBron James tops the list with 23 seasons and counting, followed by Vince Carter at 22.<\/p>\n

Golden State had sought an outside-shooting, floor-spacing center like Horford for years, but he had an injury-plagued season in 2025-26 after joining the Warriors as a free agent. He averaged 8.3 points and 4.9 rebounds over 45 games, shooting 36.1% from long distance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most notably, Horford struggled with sciatica early in the season and a strained calf later in the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he showed his impact during the Warriors\u2019 dramatic play-in tournament win over the Los Angeles Clippers on April 15. Horford scored 14 points\u00a0\u2014 including four 3-point shots in the game\u2019s final six minutes\u00a0\u2014 as he and Stephen Curry<\/a> led a spirited surge to propel the Warriors to victory.<\/p>\n

Horford spoke often of his comfort with the Warriors throughout the season. Still, he left open the possibility of retiring after a long career highlighted by five All-Star berths and the 2024 championship with Boston.<\/p>\n

His decision to keep playing hinged, in part, on what the Warriors were building before forward Jimmy Butler<\/a>\u2019s season-ending torn ACL in January. Butler also will miss at least half of next season, as will Moses Moody (torn patellar tendon).<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see it through,\u201d Horford told ESPN. \u201cThat (Butler injury) kind of put a damper on things. Jimmy is a very special player, and he was doing so much for us. I feel like things were starting to turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horford\u2019s new contract with the Warriors won\u2019t become official until July 6, when the league\u2019s free-agency moratorium ends. ESPN first reported the deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two days after adding youth by drafting Michigan\u2019s Yaxel Lendeborg, the Golden State Warriors agreed to retain their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[5551,64,63,5552,590,85],"class_list":["post-760063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-al-horford","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}