The Boston Celtics Just Made a HUGE Trade

The Boston Celtics Just Made a HUGE Trade

celtics have traded Drew Holiday to the Trailblazers for Anthony Simons and two second round picks he’s been traded to Portland he went to the Trailblazers from Milwaukee in the Damen Lillard trade but was then traded to Boston 4 days later this NBA offseason has been absolutely insane so insane that NBA teams couldn’t wait until the season officially concluded and started trading in the middle of the NBA finals kevin Durant got traded on Sunday the day of game seven to the Houston Rockets it’s a few days before that Desmond Bane got traded to the Orlando Magic and now the Boston Celtics made their first in a long series of trades today so why would the Celtics make this trade well we’re going to break it down before we get to the content we’re going to keep you up to date throughout the entire off season with all the latest and greatest NBA news make sure you drop like subscribe and turn on our notifications to stay updated and now that we got all that out of the way cue the intro everybody literally just hours ago ESPN’s Shams Trano just broke the news that the Boston Celtics have traded Drew Holiday back to the Portland Trailblazers for Anthony Simons and two second round picks hold up hold up hold up back to Portland yeah you heard that right if you guys remember less than two years ago Portland traded Holiday to Boston for Malcolm Brogden Robert Williams and two first round picks now he’s going back to Portland for just Anthony Simons and second round picks that’s a massive loss in value so you might be wondering what happened well let me tell you the real story of why this happened and it involves a $500 million price tag that’ll blow your mind but before we get to the money we need to talk about the moment that started this entire domino effect during game four of the Eastern Conference semi-finals at Madison Square Garden Jason Tatum lunges for a loose ball with under 3 minutes left his right leg gives out non-cont injury and everyone watching everyone knew exactly what just happened the MRI confirmed our worst nightmare a complete rupture of the right Achilles tendon the same injury that happened to Tyrese Hallebertton during game seven of the NBA Finals the same injury that took Kevin Durant 18 months to fully recover from and here’s the brutal reality that Celtics fans don’t want to hear the average NBA recovery time for an Achilles rupture is 10 months so Jason Tatum is missing the entire 2025 to 26 season but that injury that’s only half of the story here’s where things get insane the Celtics were about to become the first team in NBA history to have a half a billion dollar roster and I’m not exaggerating their projected payroll for the 2025 to26 season was $227.8 million but here’s the kicker you add in the luxury tax penalties and that’s another $238 million which means the total cost is nearly half a billion for one season of basketball let me put this into perspective for you from 2002 to 2022 that’s 20 years the Celtics paid a total of $52 million in luxury tax in just the last three seasons they’ve paid over $180 million next year’s bill alone would have been more than four times what they paid in two decades but wait it gets even worse the new CBA introduced something called the Second Apron and this is where things get really wild i’ll explain exactly what that means in just a minute but first let me tell you why Drew Holiday specifically had to go so why Drew Holiday this man helped the Boston Celtics win a championship for crying out loud well let’s take a look at the cold hard numbers holiday just turned 35 and his production fell off of a cliff this season 11.1 points per game his lowest since his rookie year his three-point shooting dropped to a 35.3% but here’s the real problem holiday still has $104 million left on his contract over the next 3 years that’s $32.4 million next season $34.8 million the year after and a $37.2 $2 million player option that he’s probably going to opt into because he’s going to be 38 years old by that point compare that to what they’re getting back anthony Simons is 26 years old nine years younger than Drew Holiday he led Portland in scoring with $19.3 points per game he’s making 27.7 million next season saving Boston about $5 million but more importantly and this is key his contract expires after next season so this is more of a salary dump than anything at least Boston has a young player that they could take a good look at for the next year and decide whether or not he is going to stick around for the long haul who’s around the same age as Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown but there’s drama behind the scenes that nobody’s talking about and I’m about to blow your mind with what’s really happening in Boston here’s where it gets juicy espn’s Tim Bombaps dropped a bombshell suggesting that the Celtics should trade four of their five starters not just Drew Holiday we’re talking Chrisaps Porzingis Derek White and get this even Jaylen Brown tim Bontep’s exact words is you could get a metric ton for Jaylen Brown here’s the crazy part bobby Marks from ESPN is ranking Boston’s trade assets with Derek White actually having more trade value than Jaylen Brown because of their contracts alone he said it would take a Desmond Bane Plus type of offer to get Derek White a huge reason why the Boston Celtics were sold to begin with was because of their luxury tax bill and multiple sources are reporting that the Celtics are getting 100% big trade offers for Jaylen Brown this true holiday trade it might just be the first domino to fall but before I tell you what’s coming next let’s break down the Second Apron and why it’s literally destroying championship teams the Second Apron is basically a hard cap for big spenders and the penalties are absolutely brutal teams over this line can’t use the mid-level exception they can’t aggregate contracts and trades they can’t take back more salary than they send out and their draft picks literally get frozen the Celtics were $20 million over this line that means they couldn’t make any moves to improve their team they were handcuffed so the reason why the Celtics made this move made a lot of sense and it might be the first in a series of moves but why would Portland make this move well for Portland this trade is honestly bizarre when you first look at it they finished 36 and 46 last season and are clearly rebuilding around Scoot Henderson Shaden Sharp and Donovan Klingan holiday is 35 years old he doesn’t fit their timeline at all so why did they do it well we might see a repeat once again my personal theory is Portland might flip Holiday again before training camp the Mavericks are in the market for a defensive guard next to Kyrie Irving and Kyrie Irving is out for the season the Clippers are also always in win now mode so don’t be shocked if Drew Holiday gets traded from Portland once again portland basically became the middleman in this deal they take Anthony Simons off their books they get Holiday as a tradable asset to a contender and they probably get even more value when they flip him that’s actually genius team building but let’s talk about what this means for Boston because this is where it could get really scary if you’re a Celtic fan for Boston this is the official breakup of their 2024 championship core and losing Drew Holiday is massive holiday is a sixtime alldefensive team member he’s the guy who shut down Tyrese Hallebertton Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland during their championship run boston had the second ranked defense this past season and now they’re losing their best perimeter defender adding Simons does give them a scoring punch he’s a career 38.4% 4% three-point shooter and can create his own shot but he’s a defensive liability portland’s defense was significantly worse with him on the court but here’s the thing that should terrify Celtic fans this is just the beginning trading Drew Holiday barely did anything to fix their problems they still need to shed another $15 million to get underneath the second apron so Chris’s Porzingis on an expiring $30.7 million deal he could be next al Horford’s already talking retirement at 39 even Derek White at $28 million might be on the table and this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this movie do you remember the 2004 Los Angeles Lakers after losing in the finals they traded Shaq to Miami because ownership wouldn’t pay for his extension and Kobe and Shaq weren’t really getting along the Lakers went 34 and 48 the next season and missed the playoffs shaq on the other hand won a championship in Miami two years later or what about what happened to the Lakers after Kobe tore his Achilles in 2013 they missed the playoffs for six straight seasons the longest drought in franchise history kobe only played 107 of 246 possible games in his final three seasons and was never the same player so what happens next for the Boston Celtics well 2025 to 2026 is now a gap year for Boston without Tatum they’re looking at Jaylen Brown trying to carry a team with Anthony Simons an injuryp-p prone Chrisap Sporzingis an ancient Al Horford and role players in the loaded Eastern Conference with the Knicks ascending and the Pacers young core developing Boston might not even make the playoffs next year their next realistic championship window comes in the 2026 to 27 season when Jason Tatum returns and by then Drew Holiday would have been 37 al Horford will certainly be retired chris’s Porzingis will be gone and they’ll need to completely retool around Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown assuming that Jaylen Brown’s still even there shams has already said that he expects the Celtics to have a completely different roster in the 2025 to 26 season and the NBA is literally bracing for the Celtics to make trades according to multiple insiders for Holiday this is his fourth team in three years from Milwaukee to Portland to Boston and back to Portland at 35 he’s probably looking at this as potentially his last stop as a key contributor but here’s the thing that really gets me about this situation this trade truly tells you that this new CBA is horrible the new CBA Second Apron rules are doing exactly what small market owners wanted it’s forcing big market teams to break up their cores no team can stay above the Second Apron for more than a couple of years without crippling their future flexibility a team that just won a championship two years ago is being forced to tear it apart because of luxury tax bills and injury luck drew Holiday a two-time champion six-time alldefensive player and the definition of a winning player is being shipped around like a trading card the Celtics are choosing financial flexibility over competing and they’re betting that saving money now will help them build a contender around Jason Tatum when he returns but history shows us that championship windows don’t stay open forever but what other choice do they truly have if you’re a Celtic fan let me know in the comments section down below what do you guys think about this trade i personally have no choice but to give the Boston Celtics an A primarily because they don’t have much of a choice here they need to make this trade it would have been foolish to keep Holiday around and pay those luxury tax bills and at least they got a young player to evaluate for this upcoming season and for Portland I can’t really give them a grade until I figure out what happens with Holiday moving forward so let me know in the comment section down below what do you guys think about this trade aside from that I don’t know if you guys heard Kevin Durant got traded he’s going to the Houston Rockets we made a completely separate video on that i’m going to leave it in the end screen and meet you guys there i’m your boy Mike and I’m dropping our mic until our next upload

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