Jrue Holiday has had a summer to remember. After playing a pivotal role in helping the Celtics raise Banner 18 in June, earning his second NBA championship, he brought home his second Olympic Gold Medal with Team USA in Paris.
“I feel like I’m still on a high of everything going on,” Holiday said with a smile.
With less than a month until the Celtics report for Media Day, the focus shifts to doing it all again.
Boston enters the 2024-25 season as favorites to repeat, largely because they’re set to return 15 of the 17 players from last season’s championship squad—a team that outscored opponents by +930 points in the regular season (the fifth-best mark in league history) and cruised through the NBA Finals with a 16-3 postseason record. The only players not returning are Oshae Brissett, who remains a free agent, and Svi Mykhailiuk, who signed with Utah.
Such continuity is a rare advantage in today’s NBA, and Holiday believes it gives the Celtics a “head start” as they gear up for their title defense in October.
“I think it’s going to help a lot,” Holiday said. “It’s always hard to win one, but to win back-to-back is even harder. So I think just kind of getting a head start on other teams, possibly, where we have the continuity and the goal that we wanted for the end of the season — it ended up happening for us, but to be able to go into the next season locked in and doing the same thing [will help].”
Since 2000, only four teams have managed to repeat as champions. The last to do so were the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018. Since then, six different teams have claimed the title, with none of the previous champions advancing past the Conference Semifinals.
Despite the tough road ahead, one man who knows a thing or two (or three) about winning—David Ortiz—is picking the Celtics to repeat as champions.
“Of course, the Celtics are gonna repeat,” Ortiz confidently said while seated next to Holiday when asked for a prediction about next year’s champion. “Without a doubt.”
The Celtics will kick off their title defense against the New York Knicks on October 22 at TD Garden.
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