The Boston Celtics landed guard Jrue Holiday through a trade with the Portland Trailblazers after the Milwaukee Bucks shockingly flipped him for Damien Lillard.
It didn’t take long for Celtics GM Brad Stevens to make a deal to acquire Holiday, a player he’s long had an affinity for since he was coaching on the sidelines.
The initial trade of Holiday for Lillard is still shocking. Not only to me, but the Celtics front office, fans, players around the league, and of course, Holiday, who spent the last three years in Milwaukee and won a championship along the way.
Holiday has been transparent from the start of being traded, technically twice just this past offseason. He said the Bucks didn’t give him a heads up and he learned about it from waking up from a nap to a missed call from Jon Horst, Milwaukee’s GM, and Jason Glushon, Holiday’s agent.
On a recent episode of The Draymond Green Show, Holiday expressed himself about what the situation looked liked from his perspective, even saying that Khris Middleton was the first of his former teammates to reach out to him when the news broke:
“I’m taking a nap, I see the text, I see the call from the GM and I’m like ‘I’ll call him back’ like, I’m deep in this nap… two seconds later, my agent called me. So I pick up his call [and] he’s like, ‘You talk to him?’ He’s like, ‘Well, you just got traded, so you should probably call him back.’”
When Holiday returned Horst’s call, the GM told him that he was traded for Lillard, leaving Holiday completely stunned by the situation as he learned he was going to Portland.
Although Holiday knew before the rest of the world, he would’ve appreciated knowing more than five minutes prior to it breaking.
“At least let me know 24-hours in advance, not five-minutes in advance.”
Holiday goes on to explain that he didn’t think he was “untouchable” when it comes to being traded but he was surprised that Milwaukee moved on from him after being an essential part of winning a championship.
It feels like there’s a part of Holiday that wants to beat the Bucks to show them that he’s still a great player and that he can still produce and contribute to a championship team. On top of that, he was a little hurt when the Bucks just moved on from him, out of the blue. So I think there’s some extra motivation for him to beat Milwaukee.
Holiday has already re-signed with Boston for four more years after contributing to Boston’s historic season during his first year with the team. He’s doing things defensively he’s never done before, which he enjoys, and he’s hitting corner 3’s at an absurd rate of 61.1 percent.
The Celtics are 2-2 against the Bucks this season and Holiday has played in three of the four games against his former team. He enjoys going back to Fiserv Forum to see some of his old teammates and arena workers, but it’s all about winning for him in the end.
“It’s cool. Get to see a lot of people that I enjoy seeing. I do want to beat them, so when I walk out I can talk shit.”
via NBC Sports Boston Postgame
Holiday definitely found a spot with the Celtics as things are set up for him to finish his career in Boston and hopefully win more championships.
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