Celtics asking price for Jrue Holiday revealed

Not a surprise: The Boston Celtics are fielding offers for aging point guard Jrue Holiday as they look to shed salary ahead of what appears to be a gap year without Jayson Tatum. Surprise: The Celtics reportedly put a first-round pick price tag on Holiday. To put it bluntly, they’re insane to think a 34-year-old veteran with a ridiculous contract will yield a first-round pick. 

It makes sense that the Celtics want draft capital for Holiday rather than a player swap, as they need to cut salaries expeditiously to avoid the second apron penalties that are looming on the horizon. But the team should accept what they can get for a declining player, not overbid and be stuck with Holiday for another season that makes it even harder to trade him a year from now. 

For what it’s worth, I think Boston can get a first-rounder maybe for the 2026 or 2027 draft, but again, the teams that would be interested in making that move are few and far between. I guess bid high and settle later? But throwing out that price tag off rip is a sign the Celtics are scrambling for answers to solve their salary cap problem. 

Jrue Holiday price tag rumors further add to complicated offseason for Boston Celtics

Losing Tatum was one thing. But losing him when the franchise was already going to have to figure out how to cut salary makes things a whole lot more complicated. When the Celtics decided they wanted to pay everybody, it signaled they liked this core and wanted to keep them around as long as possible. But new luxury tax restrictions created a situation in which the bill was always going to come due after the 2024-25 season.

If this season had ended in a championship, it might be worth it. But they came up short after losing Tatum, which means they probably shouldn’t have coughed up $300 million for Jaylen Brown and another $100-plus million for Devin White. 

These are the decisions they are stuck with and now they have to figure out how to navigate this offseason. Brown will probably stick around as the front office purges this roster. But Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis seem to be on the chopping block, although both of them figure to be difficult to move in their own ways.

If the Celtics keep a good part of this core together, there’s no reason why Boston shouldn’t be a playoff team in the Eastern Conference even without Tatum. If they aren’t competitive by the trade deadline, it might be worth blowing this thing up and truly rebuilding around a healthy Tatum in 2026-27 and beyond.

Regardless of what the team decides, Holiday shouldn’t make it through the offseason. If he does, Boston just puts itself in an even more impossible situation. Whether it’s a first-round pick or not, Brad Stevens has to find a way to offload Holiday sooner rather than later.