Celtics Notes: Horford, Brissett, Holiday, Lundberg

Al Horford could have gone out on top, but that’s not on his agenda. The veteran Celtics big man says he wants to keep playing next season and beyond, as he told Jared Weiss of The Athletic (video link).

“I’m coming back. That’s the plan. … I’ll start training in a couple weeks again,” he said.

Horford, 38, has one year left on his contract and will make $9.5MM next season. If all goes well, he might be seeking another contract next offseason.

“I feel good, I want to keep it going,” he said.

We have more Celtics news:

• Oshae Brissett will reportedly decline his player option and become an unrestricted free agent. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s leaving, Brian Robb of MassLive.com writes. The Celtics still have the option to bring back Brissett on a veteran’s minimum deal or with Non-Bird rights. However, Brissett might prefer to find a bigger role in another organization. If he signs elsewhere, Jordan Walsh could move up the depth chart.
• Mike Guevera, Jrue Holiday‘s longtime performance coach, marvels at how much time and effort Holiday puts into his workouts, “I’ve been doing this for 16 years. In my career, he’s approached the off-court stuff probably more intensely than the on-court stuff better than anybody I’ve worked with across the board in the NFL and the NBA,” Guevera told Sportskeeda’s Mark Medina.
• Forward Gabriel Lundberg, who played four games for Phoenix in 2021/22, indicated that he turned down an offer from the Celtics, according to Thomas Picture of TV2 Sport. It apparently would have been a training camp invite, rather than a guaranteed contract. “Boston (was) very honest and transparent in their approach to me. I would have become something like the 15th man on the team and really only a training player,” he said. “So nothing with guaranteed playing time or opportunities. It doesn’t work for me anymore.” Lundberg has instead signed a two-year contract with the Serbia’s Partizan Belgrade.