Celtics Trade Proposal Swaps Jrue Holiday For $9.6 Million ‘Celtic Killer’

Even before the 2024 NBA champion Boston Celtics were shockingly eliminated from the possibility of winning back-to-back titles, losing in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the New York Knicks, it was clear that Boston will be a significantly different team next season.

As a “second apron” team, one of only three with a payroll at that level, the Celtics must cut salary to avoid not only a staggering “luxury tax” hit, but even more importantly, crippling restrictions on every type of roster move, leaving the team unable to rebuild in the years ahead.

Even Celtics’ outgoing owner Wyc Grousbeck has acknowledged that the second apron penalties are simply unsustainable for any team.

“The basketball penalties mean that it’s even more of a premium now to have your basketball general manager be brilliant and lucky,” Grousbeck said back in March. “You can’t stay in the second apron, nobody will, I predict, for the next 40 years of the CBA, no one is going to stay in the second apron more than two years.”

Celtics Have No Choice But to Downgrade Team

That means the Celtics must dump salary, shipping out at least some of the players who formed the core of the 2024 championship squad, and this season’s 61-win team.

The website FanSpo‘s “Trade Machine and Cap Manager” allows users formulate their own trades, automatically calculating if a specific trade is possible under the NBA’s restrictions, including the second apron rules.

One fan on Wednesday proposed a deal that would see the Celtics send two-time NBA champion point guard to the Dallas Mavericks — with an interesting return that Celtics fans may find a tough pill to swallow.

The proposed trade also involves a third team — the Celtics’ hated west coast rival, the Los Angeles Lakers.

Here is how the FanSpo proposed trade would work out:

Celtics get:

Power forward Jarred Vanderbilt from Lakers.

Shooting guard Max Christie from Dallas.

Small forward Caleb Martin from Dallas.

Mavericks get:

Point guard Jrue Holiday from Boston.

First-round draft pick in 2031 from Lakers.

Lakers get:

Center Daniel Gafford from Dallas.

Player Who ‘Hates the Celtics’ Would Now Join Them

For the Celtics, dumping Holiday’s $32.4 million in 2025-2026 salary while bringing in the three players listed for a would give the club $3.5 million in cap relief, according to FanSpo calculations. But the acquisition of Martin is at least an intriguing one, because the 29-year-old who entered the NBA in 2019 as an undrafted free agent with the Charlotte Hornets and is due $9.6 million next season, has become known as a “Celtic killer.”

His reputation stems largely from the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals when Martin was playing for the Miami Heat. Miami, coming into the playoffs after winning the eighth and lowest seed in the play-in tournament, stunned the No. 2 seeded Celtics in seven games.

Martin scored at least 20 points three times in the series, and shot an incredible 60.2 percent from the floor, including a seemingly unreal 49 percent from three point range.

But that was not his only Celtics-slaying performance. In fact, in the 2023 and 2024 calendar years, Martin was one of only four players to hit at least 45 three-point shots, shooting at least 45 percent from three, against one team.

For Martin, that team was the Celtics.

Martin, as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers on Christmas Day, 2024, hit a career-high seven of nine three-point attempts in a game against Boston.

After that game, Martin’s then-teammate Joel Embiid remarked that Martin, “hates them as much as I do.”

But under the new trade proposal, Martin had better get over whatever he has against the Celtics because he would be joining them.