{"id":146073,"date":"2025-06-22T04:44:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T08:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=146073"},"modified":"2025-06-22T04:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T08:44:16","slug":"celtics-jrue-holiday-kevin-durant-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/22\/celtics-jrue-holiday-kevin-durant-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected Celtics Starter Being Discussed In Kevin Durant Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics decisions aren\u2019t always the easiest to predict and that\u2019s especially true this offseason. Following a team sale and freak injury, the Celtics \u2014though rich, proud and mighty \u2014are at a crossroads. This has led to immense speculation about the team breaking up a core<\/a> that won a championship just last year.<\/p>\n

To level with everyone, no one on the roster is really safe. Yet, \u201cthe focus for<\/a>\u201d media members and analysts has been six-time All-Defensive selection Jrue Holiday<\/a>. In fact, on a recent airing of The Zach Lowe Show<\/em>, eponymous NBA insider Zach Lowe reports: \u201cI\u2019ve heard that there have been at least very broad discussions of three-team, (Kevin) Durant-related trades where Jrue Holiday is (included)…\u201d<\/p>\n

Celtics Starter Jrue Holiday Being Discussed In Kevin Durant Trade<\/h2>\n

Hypothetically, the heretofore unnamed third team could be the Dallas Mavericks, who have him on their short list of stop-gap guard targets<\/a>. The Sacramento Kings are another contender that would like to add him<\/a>. Ultimately, because of Holiday\u2019s pedigree, he should have a few deeply interested suitors<\/a>. For simplicity\u2019s sake though, let\u2019s say that Phoenix and Boston have<\/em> talked turkey with Dallas and Sacramento.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Feb 6, 2025; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Dallas Mavericks power forward Anthony Davis (3) talks with Boston Celtics guard Jrue Holiday after the game at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What might those deals look like?<\/p>\n

Brass Tacks<\/h3>\n

Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this before but Boston is a second apron team. The result is that they can\u2019t aggregate contracts until they shed salary. If Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant<\/a> is their target, that seemingly means the Celtics will have to dump Kristaps Porzingis<\/a>\u00a0\u2014who\u2019ll make $30.7 million next season on an expiring contract \u2014in a separate transaction in order to make any<\/em> deal work.<\/p>\n

Dallas Mavericks<\/h3>\n

The Celtics are seemingly hoping to shed salary and the Mavericks have multiple players whose contracts will expire next summer. As it so happens, those of Daniel Gafford<\/a>, PJ Washington<\/a> and Dwight Powell<\/a> total approximately $32.5 million. Said figure is conveniently close to Holiday\u2019s 2025-26 salary ($32.4 million) but far from what Durant will make ($54.7 million).<\/p>\n

To make salaries match, Boston will send Holiday to Dallas as Payton Pritchard<\/a>, Sam Hauser<\/a>, Xavier Tillman Sr.<\/a> and Baylor Scheierman<\/a> to the Suns. For their part, the Mavs will trade Gafford, Washington and Powell to the Phoenix.<\/p>\n

Celtics receive: Durant<\/em><\/p>\n

Suns receive: Gafford, Washington, Pritchard, Hauser, Tillman, Powell, Scheierman, 2025 No. 28 pick, future first-round pick (via Celtics)<\/em><\/p>\n

Mavs receive: Holiday<\/em><\/p>\n

Sacramento Kings<\/h3>\n

The Kings didn\u2019t do much right last season but at least they won\u2019t be restricted by the first or second apron. Indeed, that freedom of movement could seriously help them being the team that makes the deal. In other words, Sacramento may inherently be one of the easier teams to deal with. On top of that, the Suns would probably like the combination of DeMar DeRozan<\/a> and Jonas Valanciunas<\/a> quite a lot.<\/p>\n

DeRozan doesn\u2019t have Durant\u2019s range but there\u2019s real overlap in their style and shot-making prowess. Furthermore, the Suns want a starting-caliber center<\/a> and Valanciunas carries that label.<\/p>\n

Celtics receive: Durant<\/em><\/p>\n

Suns receive: DeRozan, Valanciunas, Pritchard, Hauser, Tillman, Scheierman, future first-round pick (via Celtics)<\/em><\/p>\n

Kings receive: Holiday<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics decisions aren\u2019t always the easiest to predict and that\u2019s especially true this offseason. Following a team sale and freak injury, the Celtics \u2014though rich, proud and mighty \u2014are at a crossroads. This has led to immense speculation about the team breaking up a core that won a championship just last year. To […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":146084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1608,30,2,62,3,28,4721],"tags":[1453,350,239,69,4774],"class_list":["post-146073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celtics","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","category-suns","category-trade-rumors","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-demar-derozan","tag-jrue-holiday","tag-kevin-durant","tag-rumors"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146073"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146085,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146073\/revisions\/146085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}