How Jrue Holiday’s Extension Has Huge Benefit On Celtics Cap Situation

The Boston Celtics are paying a lot of money to a lot of players.

Jaylen Brown this past offseason inked a gargantuan five-year, $304 million supermax extension, which will go into effect starting next season. Kristaps Porzingis signed a two-year, $60 million extension in July after the Celtics acquired him from the Washington Wizards.

The Celtics doled out a smaller four-year, $30 million extension to Payton Pritchard at the start of the campaign while star forward Jayson Tatum is eligible in the offseason to sign his supermax deal, which is projected to pay him around $318 million.

It felt like the Celtics seemingly couldn’t put any more big contracts on their books, but Boston kept throwing money around Wednesday night when it signed Jrue Holiday to a four-year, $135 million contract extension.

So counting Tatum’s projection along with the other previous extensions, the Celtics will have an astounding $859 million tied to five players. And don’t forget, Derrick White will enter a contract year next season, too.

But Holiday’s new deal, which begins next season, serves as a big benefit to the Celtics cap situation. Holiday had a player option for $37.3 million for next season, which the 33-year-old most likely would have opted into given where he’s at in his career, the dollar figure amount and the chance to play for a legitimate contender.

The contract extension wipes out Holiday’s player option, though, and in turn will bring his average annual value down.

“The first year of the extension will reduce his salary to $30M, saving Boston over $35M in luxury tax penalties,” former NBA general manager and ESPN analyst Bobby Marks posted on the X platform.

That’s certainly a win for the Celtics, who catch a little bit of break while retaining a valuable and versatile piece that has fit right in since being acquired from the Portland Trail Blazers via a trade prior to the start of this season.

Marks sees an added advantage to the deal, too.

“The benefit from the extension is that Boston eliminates $5.7M of likely/unlikely bonuses that would have counted toward the first/second apron,” Marks wrote. “Celtics now have wiggle room to get under the apron at the trade deadline if needed.”

The Celtics will in all likelihood be a second apron team for the 2024-25 season, which comes with restrictions in free agency and on the trade market. Boston certainly will have more financial decisions to make in the future regarding Tatum and more so White.

But by continuing to spend in every direction, the Celtics clearly are committed to keeping their core in place in an attempt to chase a championship banner this season and beyond.