A different look at new Sixers Al Horford and Josh Richardson

The Sixers are bringing in two new presumptive starters with the signing of Al Horford and the acquisition of Josh Richardson in the Jimmy Butler trade.

Here are some quick notes on the two players.

Twitter: @Al_Horford | Instagram: alhorford | Player page: Stats, bio

♦ Has the ability to play power forward and center, which will come in handy in reducing Joel Embiid’s workload during the regular season.

♦ Horford, who is 33 and will be entering his 13th season, claims to be an excellent Ping-Pong player.

♦ Speaking of Ping-Pong balls, Horford was a lottery pick in 2007. Atlanta took him third overall after Portland selected Greg Oden (yikes) and Seattle took Kevin Durant. The Sixers took Thad Young at No. 12 that year. Pretty good draft class, except for that top pick.

♦ Horford left Atlanta for Boston in July 2016, the day after the Hawks decided to sign Dwight Howard. They haven’t won a playoff series since.

♦ According to Basketball-Reference.com, Horford will be the 42nd player to play for both the Sixers and Celtics franchises. The most notable are Gerald Henderson, Evan Turner, Theo Ratliff, Dana Barros and, our favorite, Fred Scolari. Scolari, a guard in the 1950s, played for Syracuse in 1950-51 and Boston in 1954-55. He was blind in one eye and deaf in one ear — and an All-Star four times.

♦ Horford, assuming something untoward doesn’t happen, will be the first player ever to go from starting for the Celtics one season to starting for the Sixers the next, according to Inquirer research. Bailey Howell (1969-70) and Amir Johnson (2016-17) started for the Celtics, but mostly came off the bench when they came to the Sixers the following seasons.

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♦ Horford won two national titles at Florida, but hasn’t been to the NBA Finals yet. His teams are 0-3 in the Eastern Conference Finals.

♦ College coach Billy Donovan nicknamed Horford “Godfather,” after Marlon Brando’s title role in the 1972 Oscar-winning film. "I just felt like in `The Godfather,' Don Corleone didn’t say a whole lot, but he had a great presence about himself,” Donovan said during the 2007 NCAA Tournament. "And Al, with our team, is not a man of many words, but certainly his presence and the respect level the team has for him goes a long way.”

♦ Horford shot 53.5 percent from the field this past season, his best in five years. That number dropped to 41.8 in nine postseason games.

♦ The Sixers lost 10 of 13 games to the Celtics when Horford played against Embiid.

♦ Horford’s middle name is Joel.

♦ Horford’s father, Tito, was a 7-1 center and somewhat of a novelty in the late 1980s coming out of the Dominican Republic. Tito was a second-round pick in ’88 who played in 63 NBA games.

♦ Al Horford married fellow Dominican Amelia Vega Polanco on Christmas Eve, 2011. Amelia, a singer and actress, used her platform as Ms. Universe 2003 to spread awareness of HIV/AIDS.

♦ Horford is 6-10. Mrs. Horford is 6-2.

Twitter: @J_Rich1 | Instagram: jrich_0 | Player page: Stats, bio

♦ Richardson, at 6-6, will be the two-guard in the Sixers’ projected massive starting lineup.

♦ He grew up in Edmond, Okla. and played in college at Tennessee. Richardson missed new teammate Tobias Harris at Tennessee by one season.

♦ Richardson is not the three-point shooter JJ Redick was (Redick hit 39.7 percent of his threes vs. 35.7 for Richardson), but he’s 10 times the defender.

♦ A former second-round pick, Richardson has been called a poor man’s Jimmy Butler. Richardson is due to make $10.1 million in 2019-20, compared to the $32.7 million Butler will make in Miami. Poor guy.

♦ Richardson’s offensive production has improved in each of his first four seasons. He averaged 16.6 points for Miami this past season, and had a career-best 37 in a loss at Golden State.

♦ Had a streak of 13 consecutive games with multiple three-pointers made, a Miami team record. Redick’s longest such streak this past season was 12.

♦ The Heat were 17-1 this past season when Richardson was +10 or better.

♦ His mother, Alice, is an ordained Baptist minister and was his primary trainer while he was growing up. It might seem odd, except she is a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves. The family was raised on discipline.

♦ Dad Michael is a retired firefighter. Older sister Alex played a year of hoops at Oklahoma State before transferring to Central Oklahoma.

♦ Josh is a big fan of video games, except for NBA2K. “When I got to the NBA,” Richardson told the Daily Oklahoman last summer, “I just started seeing things in real life that don’t correlate to 2K, and stuff that happened in 2K that doesn’t correlate to real life. I get really mad when stuff like that happens. I can’t play 2K because I’m gonna end up almost breaking my controller because I’m so [angry], and turning the game off.”

♦ He plays classical piano and graduated Tennessee with a degree in psychology.