BOSTON – When Al Horford was seven years old, he decided he wanted to be an NBA player.
One afternoon, as they walked in downtown Santo Domingo, he turned to his mother, Arelis Reynoso, and informed her of his new aspiration.
“I remember it like yesterday,” Horford said. “We were walking on the street, and I was telling her, ‘Hey, I feel like I made a life decision. I want to play professional basketball and play in the NBA.’ And she was like, ‘Absolutely.’”
In the back of her mind, Reynoso had always wanted her son to play a different sport: baseball, which her father played in the Dominican Republic.