New Orleans Pelicans year in review: Jrue Holiday

The Jrue Holiday experience is a perfect microcosm of what went right and wrong for the New Orleans Pelicans during the 2015-16 season, and his future treatment by the team will be a wonderful case study in just what each party values.

In considering Jrue Holiday’s 2015-16 season for the New Orleans Pelicans, it’s important to start here: the man is 25 years old, and turns 26 during the offseason. He came to the Pelicans as a 22 year-old first time All-Star and is only now realizing the ceiling of the development that began in Philadelphia.

FiveThirtyEight uses a projection system call CARMELO to attempt to forecast an NBA player’s career based on the careers of what it deems “comparable players”. Think of it like basketball’s PECOTA, except stripped down to the most vital of advanced statistical representations like true shooting percentage (a stat that values Holiday pretty highly) as well as a player’s physical features (height, weight, etc.) and his percentage stats (a number like assist percentage would be highly valuable for a ball-dominant playmaker like Holiday). The general idea is that the projections pull out the bare essentials to show the best- and worst-case scenarios.

For Jrue, All-Stars like Terrell Brandon and Mark Jackson show up next to relative disappointments like T.J. Ford and Allen Leavell (?). His relatively low usage and efficient showrunning bring balance next to his diminutive stature and high turnover rate. Jrue is a player for which the separation of an injury-riddled past and an exciting statistical profile will always be impossible. Remember, this is a guy who was caught in the middle of legitimate bad blood between front offices thousands of miles apart in part due to his inability to get right from early-career leg injuries.

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All of this analytical comparison and retrospective discussion is important if we are to properly gauge the extent to which a player of Jrue’s makeup can succeed as a superstar sidekick. This was one of the major debates across the Pelicans’ fanbase (or whatever’s left of it) this year; if Holiday can be a true two-way second fiddle next to Anthony Davis. Jackson is a high-profile example of the kind of career Holiday has been building toward- Jackson was part of numerous successful-to-great teams, always operating comfortably and impactfully next to another lead guy (Patrick Ewing, Danny Manning, the Miller/Smits combo in Indiana).

So, can Jrue operate at a high enough (and healthy enough) level to provide relief for a star and support for the role players? It seems at this point the answer to that question is an unsteady yes, and somehow this year might have been the best evidence in support of that positive outlook. What began as an uncomfortable transition back into starter’s minutes ended with a gorgeous, destructive offensive streak from January through March. That three-month stretch saw Jrue post averages of 19.5 points, 7.1 assists, and 1.6 steals in 31 minutes per game. He kept his usage around 30%, set up an increasingly untalented roster night after night and even posted a +6 netRTG in January.

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The minutia of the various narrative and statistical structures built around this season are largely unimportant past this year. This is the reason that Dell Demps is likely to stay on as GM, despite the unbelievable hesitance on the part of the front office; the 2015-16 season was a lost one in New Orleans. However, it was not so for the team’s new Robin. Jrue Holiday can and will be a part of a championship-level core at some point in his career, assuming his return to health this year is real.

For all of the misgivings concerning the construction of the team’s training staff, they were able to construct a regimen to manage the constant twists, turns and tugs that an NBA season places on a player’s body in a way that allowed Holiday to get the most out of his body while playing in the most regular season games of his Pelicans career. If that continues, all systems are surely a go.

Next: Ryan Anderson year in review

So, as we await a decision on Demps’ fate in the Pelicans’ front office, we also await a new season and another decision that will follow it: whether or not to extend Mr. Holiday. From all we knew previously and all we learned in this 2015-16 season, the correct decision on that front – more than any other – seems abundantly clear: give the people what they want. Give Jrue every chance to succeed, and sign the man at the exact moment that he proves us all right.

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