Pundit Doesn't Understand Former Bruins' Fit With Trail Blazers

UCLA alumni and NBA champion Jrue Holiday was traded Monday to the Portland Trail Blazers for Anfernee Simons and two second-round picks.

The trade shocked much of the NBA public because of Holiday's stature and importance to the Boston Celtics winning the 2024 NBA Finals. However, given his contract situation, many understand why Boston did it, but don't understand what Portland gets out of this.

At the forefront of this is national NBA writer for The Athletic, John Hollinger, one of the premier voices around the league. In his reaction to the trade, Hollinger detailed why it was important to move off of the 36-year-old but was baffled at the Trail Blazer's decision.

"The Blazers are a young team that is possibly on the rise but doesn’t necessarily need to be paying a 37-year-old $37 million three years from now," he wrote. "Especially when they’re already committed to paying Jerami Grant $36 million the same season. One wonders how they’ll have any money left over to pay the players who are actually central to their plans. On the flip side, Simons makes nearly as much as Holiday in 2025-26 and doesn’t advance the ball that much in terms of digging the Celtics out of their second-apron hole.

"As for Portland, I’m baffled. Between the recent contract extensions for GM Joe Cronin and coach Chauncey Billups and the fact that the team is for sale, it seemed like Blazers management was in a great situation to take the long view and spend one more year hunting young talent and developing players."

Holiday is still, undoubtedly, a winning player. But his contract is becoming a negative asset as he ages. And it's not like Portland will move off of him like they did when they first acquired Holiday as part of the Damian Lillard trade.

However, I do think that Holiday can raise the defensive floor of the Trail Blazers and be an integral veteran presence around 21-year-old point guard Scoot Henderson.

Holiday played just one season with the Bruins in the 2008-09 season and started in all 35 of their games. He averaged 8.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game and helped lead UCLA to a 26-9 overall record.

He was also selected to the Pac-10 All-Freshman Team and was part of one of UCLA's best backcourt tandems with Darren Collison.

Holiday was drafted 17th overall by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2009 NBA Draft and has since won two NBA Championships, is a two-time All-Star and has made the All-Defensive Team six times in his career.