Easily lost amid the understandable hysteria surrounding Jrue Holiday's blockbuster trade to the Boston Celtics a few weeks ago is the two-time All-Star's age and longevity in the NBA. Holiday is 33 years old, entering his 14th season in the league after the Philadelphia 76ers drafted him with the No. 17 overall pick of the 2009 draft.

It's a testament to how Holiday takes care of his body and his ongoing two-way effectiveness that his age and NBA mileage largely went overlooked. He's played some of the best basketball of his career over the past several years, cementing himself as one of the league's best on-ball defenders while adding more range and dynamism to his jumper. Holiday hit a scorching 45.1% of his catch-and-shoot triples and a solid 36.1% on pull-up threes during his final season with the Milwaukee Bucks last year, numbers right in line with recent norms.

Most players have trouble sustaining peak levels of effectiveness into their 30s. Holiday has only gotten better, becoming one of the best all-around players in the league.

You can forgive Jayson Tatum for focusing on the excitement of Holiday's addition to the Celtics rather than the advanced stage of his career. Still, that hardly means Boston's superstar needed to chide his old-head teammate in the playfully vicious way he did before tipoff of their team's season opener against the New York Knicks on Wednesday.

Holiday, to be clear, overlapped for three seasons with Tracy McGrady. The former Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets superstar was a shell of himself by then, his career cut short by debilitating knee and back injuries. Holiday was a junior in high school when McGrady made his last All-Star appearance in 2007 with the Rockets.

Does that make Holiday an “old MFer?” Tatum, somehow still just 25, certainly seems to think so. For the Celtics' sake of winning their first championship since 2008, let's Holiday doesn't play like it in 2023-24.