During a Tuesday press conference, Boston Celtics general manager Brad Stevens has admitted the reason the team moved on from 2024 champion starters Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis in separate trades this summer.
According to Noa Dalzell of Celtics On CLNS, Stevens revealed that financial considerations were behind the moves.
Brad Stevens on trading Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis:
— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) July 8, 2025
"The second apron is why those trades happened."
"The second apron is why those trades happened," Stevens said.
As ESPN cap expert Bobby Marks noted in March of this past season, Boston's projected salary obligations extended to $230 million, a whopping $22.2 million over the second tax apron. That would have created a brutal $270 million tax penalty, yielding a combined payroll worth an estimated $500 million.
Here is what new ownership would inherit for next season:
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) March 20, 2025
- 11 players under contract
- 2 picks in the top-32 pic.twitter.com/Z6xe8DtE3o
Holiday, 35, is owed $32.4 million in 2025-26 and a whopping $104.4 million over the next three seasons of his deal. The two-time All-Star and six-time All-Defensive Teamer showed some signs of slippage on both sides of the ball this past season, albeit while grappling with a mallet finger injury that appeared to impact his jumper.
The Celtics shipped the UCLA product off to the Portland Trail Blazers for cheaper combo guard Anfernee Simons, nine years Holiday's junior. Simons is not nearly the defender Holiday has been, but is a creative scorer. How he'll integrate into a winning situation remains to be seen, as he has been toiling in relative anonymity on a series of lottery-bound Portland teams for the last four seasons.
But concerning results of Holiday's medical examination impacted the trade, as Portland opted not to include the two second round picks it initially had intended to ship off to Boston.
Last season, the 6-foot-4 guard averaged 11.1 points on .443/.353/.909 shooting splits, 4.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.1 steals in 62 healthy games.
Boston traded Porzingis to the Atlanta Hawks in a three-team deal with the Brooklyn Nets. The Celtics are receiving forward Georges Niang and one second rounder back in the deal.
Porzingis has been a massive health question mark throughout his NBA career. The 7-foot-2 big man, who'll turn 30 next month, averaged 19.5 points on .483/.412/.809 shooting splits, 6.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.5 blocks in 42 available games last season for Boston, but grappled with the impacts of a long-term viral infection during the playoffs, and was rendered largely ineffective for his second straight Celtics postseason.
Stevens also signed a pair of free agents, small forward Josh Minott and center Luka Garza, to add more cheap veteran depth this offseason.