Essay on the return according to Al Horford

Al Horford receives the ball and attacks the hoop with the latent threat of Giannis Antetokounmpo. He takes one step, two, and flies to cause the scream that spreads from Puerto Plata to the world.

The Greek, the most important athlete on the planet, is scattered on the floor. It is a blow to the jaw that dislodges those who play, those who watch, and that anticipates the knockout of what will come next.

It is, without a doubt, a memorable move, a jump taken from manuals from another era, but at the same time it is an action that brings with it an obvious symbolic load: it is the world that is leaving telling the world of today that it still has things for say. The past clinging to the present to still be, the future stopped by a passionate outburst.

Horford draws without knowing it a tunnel in time that transports us: who said that everything is lost?

Go back somewhere. Resurface. Return to the place where we were happy at least for a while. A spark of energy in which what was before converges with what is now, the players who were and are no longer, those who were before and are no longer. Horford delivers, then, much more than an unexpected acrobatic jump; it’s a golden ticket to the land of last things. To a moment when he seemed extinct, to a basketball that is missed every day but that nevertheless is there, a play away, to hug him and feel him fully again.

This is the story of a magical comeback. The Phoenix Bird rising from the ashes to dominate the stage once again. From talent abandoned by the majority to a fundamental piece in the Conference Semifinals. The chest that opens to return the object that made us live like never before. The lost prince who knocks on the door to reunite with his beloved. Here I am again, these are my rules and this is how it will be played tonight. The teaching, the lesson, is then revealed: never let someone tell you what you can or cannot do. Do not let anyone dare to tell you whether or not you are capable of doing something on this earth.

Horford is much more than his 30 points and eight rebounds in the Celtics’ win to even the tie. He is a symbol of an idea that drives action. The perfect example that things aren’t over until they’re over. That as long as there is time on the clock there will always be possibilities to turn the story. Basketball, in this, distances itself from any sport.

“I couldn’t understand what he said, but the way he looked at me didn’t sit well with me. And that moved me forward,” Horford said of Giannis’ dunk that led to a technical foul and put Boston back in the game. The action that causes the reaction. The extinguished volcano and the combustion that wake up the eruption. Antetokounmpo’s provocative action yesterday, Sam Presti’s forgetfulness in the Oklahoma City Thunder long ago. It only takes one motivation to get the flame back.

Horford, flagship of an analog basketball that goes through the epilogue, advances against everything and everyone. Representative of an era that fights detachment, impatience and liquid relationships on a daily basis, his return is much more than a return: only those who throw in the towel before their time get old.

Falling is the first step to get up. Not so fast, dear friends.

I haven’t heard the bell yet.

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Essay on the return according to Al Horford