I saw this earlier in the week and forgot to post it.

But it’s a good story, an enjoyable nugget to leave you with on a summer Friday afternoon.

So Brian Windhorst went on his Hoop Collective podcast this week, co-hosted by ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Jackie MacMullan. Windy dropped a bit of information explaining that the Celtics were unhappy with other teams in what they felt was tampering with Al Horford, who opted out of his contract about two weeks before the official start of free agency.

Here’s what Windhorst said, after the jump:

“Jackie, I don’t know if you heard this, but the Celtics were, from what I am told, one of the teams that kind of stomped their feet about what they felt was tampering. Not with Kyrie, although that looked like it was lined up pretty far in advance, but with Horford. What happened with Horford, again from what I am told, really upset the Celtics. They were thinking they were going to be able to negotiate with him, talk to him about a new contract and all of a sudden it was like, he already knew what his market was and was out of there.

Jackie Mac called “shenanigans” on that idea, explaining that everybody in the NBA tampers, which is very much true. She pointed out that Kemba Walker just magically ended up signing with Boston for 4 years, $140 million as a Kyrie Irving replacement, who apparently knew he was going to a New York team back in December of 2018. 

It appears as though I cannot embed the Hoop Collective audio in this article, so here’s the link to the ESPN page if you’d like to listen. That convo starts around the 16 minute mark.