The Jaylen Brown trade was a tough pill to swallow, especially knowing that the Boston Celtics traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers. Making it even tougher was knowing the role it played in luring LeBron James to join forces with him. Then out came some rumor that Jrue Holiday would join them.
No one knows where that rumor came from exactly, but Celtics alum Evan Turner kind of said what we were all thinking: that Holiday on the Sixers would be the last piece of their title team. If such a scenario were to happen, it'd be Boston's nightmare come to life in full, but such a notion was quickly shut down.
NBA Insider Marc Stein set the record straight that Holiday is not going anywhere.
"I'm likewise told that recent speculation about a Jrue Holiday buyout from the Trail Blazers is erroneous. It has become a popular online pastime to suggest that such an arrangement is percolating that helps route Holiday back to the team that drafted him — which obviously fancies itself as a Superteam now after the Sixers acquired Brown and James — but league sources say Portland is not about to just usher Holiday onto the open market," Stein wrote.
And why would they? Holiday, who they got for pretty much nothing, was awesome for them last season, so they'd have no motivation to simply let him join another contender when they have every reason to keep him, no matter how bizarre their offseason has been overall.
Holiday has been the last piece of two title teams in this decade, and while that would likely be the same case if he went back to the team that drafted him, it's precisely for that reason that the Trail Blazers have absolutely no reason to end his time with the team.
They also have no reason to help the Sixers, so the Celtics don't have to worry about Holiday being a direct opponent, so hey, crisis averted!
Not that the offseason has been picture perfect for the Celtics...
Philadelphia has caught quite a few breaks this offseason, and Boston's had a lot to do with that. The Celtics might be satisfied with the moves they've made as a whole, but that doesn't change that the Sixers are projected to be one of their fiercest competitors months after their division rival just eliminated them.
There are still questions about the Sixers, a lot of which would have been answered if they had gotten their hands on Holiday. However, they are still a team that, if anyone else had been in their shoes, would have made the moves they made this summer. Whether we like it or not, the Celtics pretty much gave them a talented enough team to compete for a title on a silver platter.
But at least a Jrue Holiday reunion in the City of Brotherly Love isn't on the table, so, hey, you take whatever break you can get during a time like this.
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