Jrue Holiday Enjoys Being Reunited With Charles Lee After Trade To Celtics

Jrue Holiday is in a new city with a new team, but the newly acquired guard does have one familiar face in Boston — new Celtics assistant coach Charles Lee.

The Celtics landed Lee in the offseason as Joe Mazzulla’s top assistant after successfully serving under Mike Budenholzer for nine seasons with the Atlanta Hawks and most recently the Milwaukee Bucks.

For Holiday, Lee was someone he could lean on in Milwaukee and now in Boston.

“Charles has always been the type to be very teacher-esque; if I have any questions or anything like that, I could always go to him,” Holiday told reporters after practice on Monday, per team-provided video. “But he’s always quizzing me on plays, he’s quizzing me on schemes, what we want to do defensively, he’ll literally just walk up to me and ask me a question about something and I have to answer it. So, always just keeping my mind going, my mind engaged.”

Holiday added: “A lot of it is his presence. He’s just loud, very loud, kind of talks a lot. Charles’ presence is, I feel like it’s always felt and always heard. And everything that he says, how he presents things, I kinda call him a teacher because when he talks, you always have to pay attention, and he’s always kinda hinting at the answer. But, kinda using your brain to think and let me just think the game. So, again, him being over here just makes it more natural for me.”

Holiday played three seasons in Milwaukee under Lee and Budenholzer, where he averaged 18.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 6.8 assists in over 193 games.

The Celtics traded Robert Williams, Malcolm Brogdon, a 2024 first-round pick and a 2029 unprotected first-round pick in exchange for Holiday on Oct. 1.