Like Jrue Holiday Trade, Amphernee Simons, added to Celtics on and off the pitch – NBC Sports Boston

The first domino fell in love with the Boston Celtics. It won’t be the last.

The Celtics started the early review of their late night’s championship core, treating Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazer in exchange for Amphernee Simons and a couple of choices from the second round, for Espn’s Shams Charania.

The Celtics descend from the three seasons and over $ 100 million remaining to the holiday contract, but only save $ 4.7 million for the next 2025-26 season. Boston now deals with $ 18 million on the second line of the apron, which suggests that there are more treatments in the future of the team.

That the Celtics were able to exchange holidays at the blazers, the team that essentially redirected him from Milwaukee before the season of the Boston title 2023-24, is fun. The president of the Basketball Operations Brad Stevens was able to acquire drafts as part of the agreement, after a strong speculation that Boston should have attached a choice of the first round to transfer the holidays, is even more worthy of note.

If Simons attacks Boston, he feels like the type of player that Celtics can take a tough look in the first months of the season. The 6-Foot-3 shooting guard turned 26 at the beginning of this month and has marked on average 20.7 points per game in the last three seasons.

Simons scored on average 19.3 points per game in 70 appearances for the blazers last season and, despite a recession of his shooting efficiency, he shot 38.1 percent from over 3 points for his career. It could potentially help to fill some of the score emptiness while Jayson Tatum recovers from Achille’s intervention.

If the Celtics do not see Simons as a long -term adaptation, or if in the end they need to explore a subsequent agreement to cut more money, it may have value for other contenders as an expiring contract.

The holiday has been a fundamental part of Boston’s success in the last two seasons. He saved some of his best basketball for the Eastern Conference of 2024 against the Pacers, where he regularly made the type of winning games that helped Boston to produce a more difficult swept than a team that made the NBA finals this year.

But it was obvious to enter the summer that Holiday’s time in Boston was about to end.

The Celtics anticipated the new collective bargaining agreement by acquiring the holidays on the eve of the training camp in 2023. Stevens rewarded him with a long -term extension before the Boston title race. The Celtics will miss Holiday’s defensive versatility. He coupled well with Derrick White in the defensive “bag” backccourt.

Simons is a solid director who has put a better career 5.5 on average assists two seasons ago. He ranked in the 80th percentile as a percentage of assistance among all the guards combined last season, to clean the glass data.

The question is if he can play defense at a level that allows Joe Mazzulla to support him with confidence. The opponents shot 50.6 percent against Simons last season, or 4.4 percent more than expected production, according to the NBA tracking data.