On Sunday, the Boston Celtics dealt guard Malcolm Brogdon, big man Robert Williams III and two future first-round picks to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for guard Jrue Holiday.
During a recent episode of Zach Lowe’s podcast, the NBA insider said that multiple Eastern Conference executives expressed frustration following news of the Holiday trade to the Celtics.
“I heard from — what I would say, a couple of front office executives from good Eastern Conference teams — and the texts that I received in the immediate wake of the trade were two and three words long to the tone of, ‘Well, f— us,’ or ‘Oof, this sucks,'” Lowe said.
Holiday was selected with the No. 17 overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft after spending one season playing college basketball at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He averaged 8.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists per contest in 35 games played with the Bruins during the 2008-09 season.
The 33-year-old has played for three teams — the New Orleans Pelicans, Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks — across his 14 seasons in the NBA.
He averaged 19.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 1.2 steals per game in 67 appearances with the Bucks during the 2022-23 regular season. Holiday also shot the ball with impressive accuracy during the campaign, as he made 47.9 percent of his shots from the field and 38.4 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.
Holiday was awarded the second All-Star nod of his NBA career and a spot on the All-Defensive First Team for his contributions on both ends of the floor during the 2022-23 regular season.
The guard was an invaluable part of the Bucks team that won the 2021 NBA Finals. Arguably Holiday’s best playoff series during Milwaukee’s title run came in the Eastern Conference Finals against Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks. Holiday averaged 22.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 10.0 assists per game for the series, and the Bucks eliminated the Hawks in six games.
The Celtics and Bucks now stand out as the two most talented teams in the Eastern Conference after the former traded for Holiday and the latter for Damian Lillard. The NBA world may see an Eastern Conference Finals matchup between these two teams in the spring of 2024.
