Grading the Celtics' 2024 Offseason Moves After Title Win
You know what's better than one championship? Two championships.
Don't get me wrong; winning one is great. Watching mounds of green and white ticker tape flutter to the parquet instantaneously marked the pinnacle of my sports life, and the days and weeks since have been an extension of that feeling.
For the players, their places in history are secured, forever; for the organization, it's another piece of unalienable achievement. It's difficult to overstate the gravity and importance of winning an NBA championship.
The Celtics, though, have acted like a team unsatisfied with just one championship. Just over a month into the offseason, Boston's brought back virtually every contributor from last season's title team; they also managed to land one of the more pro-ready prospects in the draft at pick 30.
Additionally, the Celtics hammered out a handful of key extensions, including the largest in NBA history when they inked Jayson Tatum to an eye popping five-year deal. Overall, it's been exactly what you'd want to see as a fan - a leadership group committed to giving this bunch a chance to do something really special.
With that being said, here are the grades for every move in the Celtics' offseason thus far. We'll start with the big ones:
Celtics Extend Jrue Holiday: 4 years, $134.4 million*
At first glance, giving nearly $135 million to a 34-year old guard is... questionable. Conventional thinking around the league suggests giving a massive paydays to a guy entering his late-30s is ambitious at best and downright disastrous at worst. It's simply too much risk to invest that kind of capital in a player who'll almost certainly decline over the course of the deal.
Jrue Holiday is no regular 34-year old guard, though. In just one season, the addition of Holiday's steady, seasoned presence turned the Celtics from perennial almost-men into world champions. Throughout the playoff run, when the Celtics needed a big play, there was Holiday: whether it was a strip to win a key game against Indiana or a 26-point, 11-rebound performance to take a tight Game 2 vs Dallas. It's not an overstatement to say there is no banner 18 without Jrue Holiday.
To boot, the now two-time champion is (still) one of the best defenders in NBA history, and just shot a career-best 43% from beyond the arc in 2023-24. His counting stats have continued to hold up, too (despite a reduced role playing alongside a litany of stars) and he's the perfect complementary piece to any team interested in winning a championship. To top it off, the ballooning salary cap makes this deal easily tradable, should the time come.
*Contract agreed to in April
Grade: A-