What does Holiday do for Boston & How about the Return for Portland
This was rather unexpected. We knew Jrue Holiday was going to get traded at some point, but I wasn’t expecting this to be this soon — Damian Lillard literally got traded three days ago.
This all happened way too fast to even process but that’s also what makes the off-season quite fun with these unexpected bombs. It’s a random Sunday evening and you see a Woj tweet(but now you also have to double and triple-check before believing it because verified accounts can still be fake).
And all of this means that there’s a lot to get through. There’s the trade from both sides, how that affects the Boston Celtics, and what to make of the Portland Trail Blazers’ return.
What Does Holiday Do for Boston?
So, Holiday is in Boston. That’s pretty big, especially in addition to the rest of the moves that the Celtics have made so far in the off-season.
Before going into the Holiday trade, it would be best to start with them trading for Kristaps Porzingis because that was the first major move. When that happened, I wasn’t much of a fan because I didn’t think Porzingis made that big of a difference.
I didn’t think the move addressed what was wrong with the Celtics nor see the vision of what Porzingis could add. That’s not to say he’s a bad player or won’t help at all, but I didn’t think that change made them better.
He’s an elite shooter for a big—shot 38.5% on over 5 attempts. He’s had the most efficient season with 62.7%. There were a lot of career highs for him. He will easily be the best offensive big man they had in a long while but I don’t think their issues on offense could’ve been fixed by another spacing big — especially when to get that big they lost Marcus Smart.
And that’s not even going through the defensive questions I had either. With Porzingis, they aren’t going to switch everything and I think that hurts them in the playoffs.
That’s where I was at with the Celtics prior to the Holiday trade. Before the trade even happened, I didn’t want Holiday going to the Celtics at all. I thought out of all the possible teams, this was going to be the one that he could help the most. I thought this was exactly what they needed, especially without Smart.
I think I still think that, but I’ve been switching back and forth on this. A lot of it has been because of his ridiculous drop-off in the playoffs in scoring, efficiency, shooting, and rim pressure. And thinking about what the Celtics would need, this doesn’t help.
Now, it’s obviously a new team, new coach, new teammates, new role, and new everything. There is nothing to suggest that he won’t be better, seeing as there are multiple seasons worth of evidence that shows he’s an elite player.
But the more I think about this, the more questions I have with fit on offense. This was an interesting stat. In the playoffs, here are some players’ time of possession and average second per touch:
Holiday: 6.9 & 4.8
Jayson Tatum: 5.4 & 4.1
Jaylen Brown: 3.7 & 3.7
Smart: 3.5 & 3.7
And when looking at Holiday’s past playoff performances, he’s had the ball in his hand a lot. In 2022, his time of possession was 7.1 and 6.6 in 2021. In Milwaukee, he’s in charge of the ball. That all makes sense given the team’s construction. But this is all likely to change in Boston. The question then is going to be what are those changes going to be like?
It’s even more interesting considering Smart’s numbers in that. He’s been a much lower-usage guy compared to what they might get with Holiday. That’s not a bad thing but it’s different. And I’d say this change is needed and is an upgrade to what they had in previous years.
Taking the ball-handling responsibility away from both Tatum and Brown is a good thing. I think Holiday should be good for that role too — and even better if his scoring is closer to his regular-season self.
But what about the pieces that they gave up? Because that’s a worrying part.
They moved on from Robert Williams and I have no idea if that’s going to work out. This is banking on both Porzingis and 37-year-old Al Horford way too much.
And this is another move that will change a lot how the Celtics will go about their defense. How much will we even see them together? And when we do, how different(or the same) will that be compared to the previous double-big lineup?
These are the on/off splits in the regular season and playoffs with Horford and Williams
It’s interesting to see that in the regular season, they’ve been so successful with both, especially on the defensive end. But in the playoffs, they clearly prefer to with 1 of them on, especially with Horford.
I guess the Celtics have a lot of questions but in a good way. This does seem like a lot of changes in what has worked in the past but those changes in theory aren’t bad but it will just depend on how it plays out. It could very well be much better than what they did — or it could go the complete opposite way because now the depth is a concern too.
But overall, I think this whole off-season has been a win for the Celtics getting better around the margins and perhaps improving their margin of error. Ultimately, I still think it all comes down to both Brown and Tatum taking a leap.
Did the Blazers Win the Trade?
So, there’s been a lot of talk about the Blazers return and whether it’s good and whether it’s better than what the Miami Heat could’ve given them.
Let’s just get a couple of things out of the way. I think the Deandre Ayton and Jusuf Nurkic trade was going to happen regardless. I don’t think that was just a Milwaukee thing but this was likely to be in place with the Heat too.
Then, the Blazers technically got:
Malcolm Brogdon
Robert Williams
2024 Golden State Warriors first
2029 Milwaukee Bucks first
2029 Boston Celtics first
2028 & 2030 Bucks swaps
It was reported that the Heat were prepared to offer three picks with Herro going to a third team, a bunch of seconds and swaps, plus Nikola Jovic. However, one question I have is whether the third pick is already what they may have got from trading Herro or if those assets were still to be determined.
Whatever the option is, I don’t think it makes much of a difference because I wouldn’t see them getting more out of flipping Herro than what they did with Holiday.
It all depends on whether you want Williams and Brogdon(whom you can flip again) or Jovic.
I still love this for Portland. They managed to get a pretty good return in total and have done a good job setting themselves up for the foreseeable future. They have the young talent, they have more players to potentially move and picks in the far future that could turn out to be great.
I don’t think they’re in as bad of a position as you may think for a team that traded their best player. Looking at what the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Houston Rockets went through the last few years, I think the Blazers will be there soon too.
I wonder what else they can get by moving Brogdon or Williams potentially.