If anyone was still daydreaming about Jrue Holiday somehow landing in Philadelphia through a Portland Trail Blazers buyout, that door looks shut for now.
NBA insider Marc Stein went digging on the chatter Monday night and came back with a blunt answer: the rumor is off base. In his words, the buyout talk was "Erroneous," and he added, "It has become a popular online pastime to suggest that such an arrangement is percolating that helps route Holiday back to the team that drafted him - which obviously fancies itself as a Superteam now after the Sixers acquired Brown and James - but league sources say Portland is not about to just usher Holiday onto the open market," Stein wrote in a late-night intel dump on Monday.
That lines up with the way Portland’s situation has shifted. The Blazers were supposed to still be a year away from turning the corner when the 2025-2026 season began, but they pushed into the postseason in 2026 sooner than expected.
With Damian Lillard back on the floor, the trajectory changed fast. Holiday may not be an annual All-Star, but he still changes games.
Stein also reported that Portland has made its stance clear to interested teams: it wants to keep Holiday. And that makes sense, because a buyout never really fit here. If the Blazers did make him available, he’d draw a strong trade market.
For the 76ers, the idea is easy to understand even if the path is not. Jrue Holiday would be a cleaner fit behind Tyrese Maxey than rookie Labaron Philon. That’s not a knock on the first-round pick out of Alabama; it’s just a nod to what Holiday has already proven in big moments.
The obstacle, though, is the money. Philadelphia would have to cobble together contracts to match Holiday’s $34.8 million salary, and then there’s the $37.2 million player option for the 2027-2028 season to consider. So unless that unlikely buyout scenario suddenly becomes real, a Sixers reunion with Holiday is staying in the rumor pile.
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