Change was inevitable for the Boston Celtics this summer. Boston’s payroll had them in danger of spending over the league’s second-apron threshold for the third consecutive season -- an offense that comes with significant consequences.
Their roster simply wasn’t sustainable.
As a result, key pieces of the Celtics’ 2024 NBA Championship team, like Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, were re-routed to new homes in salary-shedding trades.
Holiday, in particular, has looked great through the first three weeks of the NBA season. He and the Portland Trail Blazers are off to a 5-4 start and sit seventh in a loaded Western Conference. Not to mention they’ve fought through a tough schedule to start the year with wins over the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets, and Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Blazers are a fun team with a strong defensive identity, who are primed to return to relevancy for the first time in half a decade.
Jrue Holiday has seamlessly transitioned back into a major role with the Trail Blazers
Holiday has been a huge part of their impressive run to start the 2025-26 campaign. The two-time All-Star is showing that he’s got plenty left to give, after spending the last two seasons in a smaller role with the Celtics.
Through nine games with the Blazers, Holiday averages 17.4 points, 8.2 assists, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.7 steals per game while shooting 44.3% from the field and 35.8% from beyond the arc.
For perspective. The 35-year-old scored six fewer points and dished half as many assists last season in Boston. His efficiency was about the same, but on significantly fewer shots per game. The fact that Holiday has been able to uphold his percentages while taking on a larger role with Portland is impressive, to say the least.
Seeing how effective Holiday has been through his first nine games as a Trail Blazer may be somewhat surprising to Celtics fans. There was an obvious decline in the veteran’s play between the 2023-24 season and the 2024-25 campaign. But that drop-off wasn’t organic. Holiday battled his fair share of injuries last year, including a lingering shoulder problem.
There’s no question that the various ailments affected his game.
It may not have been obvious to the public, but for Holiday, it was still clear what he was capable of, which is why he was excited about this new opportunity in Portland.
“Everyone was just talking about it. Nobody was really asking me about the trade,” he explained to Andscape’s Marc J. Spears last month. “Everyone was assuming I was miserable or unhappy with it. But when I got the call from [Celtics president] Brad [Stevens], I was super excited.
“Being able to see the roster, the type of players, and the character that they have, going to a team like that means a lot. Young or veteran team, I know that a team with good character guys will always be a good situation.”
Holiday and the Blazers will make their only trip to TD Garden when they take on the Celtics on Jan. 26