When Jrue Holiday was traded from the Bucks — where he was critical to Milwaukee winning its first title in 50 years — to Portland and then later flipped again landing in Boston, his wife Lauren Holiday (the Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion of USA Soccer) took to Instagram to express how hard that could be on a family.
Jrue Holiday was asked about the entire situation before his new Boston team faced off against his former team on Wednesday, and he has come to accept it all. Here’s Holiday’s quote, via Tim MacMahon of ESPN.
“No,” Holiday said matter-of-factly Wednesday morning when asked whether he held a grudge toward the Bucks. “I think that they got what they wanted, so I can’t be mad at that.
“A warning would’ve been cool. But other than that, I’m in the best place that I can be to compete against them, which is for the top team in the East and, hopefully, the top team in the league.”
It’s a growingly common complaint from players, even those who know they could be traded — they find out about it when Woj or Shams tweets/posts on X (or whatever we’re calling it now). The player doesn’t hear from his team or agent, but finds out on social media when the rest of us first hear about it. Welcome to the modern NBA.
It makes things easier for Holiday to be magnanimous that he may have ended up in a better situation. Before the season, before the Lillard trade, it was thought to be Boston and Milwaukee in the East and then everyone else. After the trade, nothing has changed in that big picture, if anything the Celtics got stronger. Holiday stepping in for Marcus Smart (who is in Memphis) and the addition of Kristaps Porzingis have the Celtics with the best net rating in the NBA so far this season and looking every bit the contender.
He might feel differently if Holiday were not on a contender, but that is moot.
Expect Holiday to draw the Lillard assignment on Wednesday and that will be the matchup to watch — if Boston is going to beat Milwaukee over seven games next May, Holiday slowing Lillard will be key.
You may think getting traded for Lillard would give Holiday more motivation, but he’s not saying that. At least publicly. Let’s see how fired up he is when he plays.
