The Boston Celtics traded former UCLA guard Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers earlier this week. Jrue Holiday helped lead the Celtics to an NBA championship 374 days ago. While the trade likely felt like a gut punch to both Holiday and the Celtics organization, it was one everyone saw coming.
Holiday isn’t coming off his very best showing in the playoffs this season, averaging 9.5 points per game while shooting 48.3% from the field, he’s still a player that a profitable franchise like the Boston Celtics would want to keep around. Just not under this CBA.
Thanks to National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) President CJ McCollum and the rest of the NBPA Executive Committee, teams now face much stricter punishments for being in the second apron, such as frozen draft picks, no mid-level exception and limited trading abilities, it’s much harder to build a championship team while already paying a championship-level roster. McCollum even got a taste of his own medicine on Tuesday, as the Pelicans shipped him and his expring contract to the Washington Wizards.
Holiday wasn’t alone, Boston center Kristaps Porzingis was moved on Tuesday as the Celtics continued to shed salary. While in other sports, the front office would be ridiculed for those cost-saving moves, with the Celtics’ star Jayson Tatum set to miss all of next season with a ruptured achilles, it’d be foolish for the Celtics not to reset their cap situation to avoid future punishments.
This is Holiday’s second time being traded to Portland, as he was moved there in the Damian Lillard deal but never played for the Blazers before he was traded again to the Celtics. The New York Post reported that Holiday is “pissed” to join the Blazers and could potentially be moved again before the start of the season this fall.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Who is to blame for Celtics shipping Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers?
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
