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2025 Free Agents - Aaron Holiday

When Holiday first came into the league, he was seen as an on-ball creator, but didn't shown much playmaking skills through his first several seasons in the league. His assist to usage ratio (which measures how often a player gets an assist given how much they get the ball) was consistently near the bottom of the league for a point guard, according to Cleaning the Glass. He consistently took a bunch of midrange shots despite not being effective from there, and also really struggled to finish at the rim. However, turned a new leaf in '23-'24 playing in Houston, and has turned himself into a solid rotation player. Holiday might best be served as a Patrick Beverley type - a point guard that relies offensively on high-usage wings, but defensively guards the opposing point guards. We have also seen guys like Kris Dunn and Dante Exum develop roles like this once it was clear they wouldn't be primary creators. Holiday is a career 38% three-point shooter, so there's potential for him to provide some value as a spot-up shooter in that kind of limited role, and he has hit over 40% of his threes since joining the Rockets. He does have some ability to create space off-the-dribble for jumpers. Holiday will be almost 29 years old as a free agent in 2025, so he's no longer a young prospect. He has been very solid for the Rockets over the past two seasons, and was even in the regular rotation, although he fell out of the rotation in the playoffs. Holiday has been an efficient scorer for the Rockets on 58% true shooting, which is by far a career high, led by 41% 3-point shooting, 67% at the rim, and taking fewer midrange shots. If that continues, he will stick around the league as a solid backup guard.

Summary

Holiday has a $5 million team option for 2025-2026, and if that is declined he will be an unrestricted free agent with a $6 million cap hold and Early Bird rights. Using his Early Bird Rights, the Rockets could offer him a starting salary of around $14 million, which should be more than enough to retain him. However, that likely wouldn't even be an issue considering if they want to retain him and he plays well enough to warrant that kind of money, they can just exercise the option. If his option is declined, other teams will have multiple ways to sign Holiday as even teams without cap space could use any of the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Room MLE, or possibly even the Taxpayer MLE or Bi-Annual Exception to sign him. It's also possible that he only gets minimum offers.

Cap Considerations

Kris Dunn (3-1 years, $16 million, 2024) Tre Jones (2 years, $19 million, 2023) Dennis Smith, Jr. (1 year minimum, 2023)

Player/Contract Comparison

Potential Teams: Rockets, Lakers, Suns, Timberwolves, Heat

Predicted Contract: Opt In: $5 million
If opt out: 1-year, $4 million with the Lakers

Actual Contract: 1-year, $3.1 million ($2.3 million cap hit with the Rockets
The Rockets declined Holiday's option and re-signed him to a minimum contract. I'm a little surprised Holiday and his camp didn't apply more pressure by stating "pick up the option or we walk", because Holiday would likely have had minimum offers elsewhere.

Last updated: 6/30/2025

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