The 4 storylines to watch at New Orleans Pelicans media day
By Willie Lutz
How much will the Pelicans lean on Jrue Holiday?
Entering year one with the reloaded roster, the second star from the last core still lingers. Jrue Holiday is probably the best player on the New Orleans Pelicans this season, something I can say with a tremendous amount of confidence.
Holiday is a veteran and he’s been a rock for the Pels since they acquired him from the Philadelphia 76ers in 2013. Heck, J.J. Redick said on The Zach Lowe Podcast that Holiday was the reason he decided to come to the Big Easy, not for any other reason than Redick liking what the 29-year-old Jrue does on the floor.
There is a wrinkle; back when Holiday signed his 5-yr., $131.8 million extension with the Pelicans, he cited Anthony Davis as a huge reason for his sticking around (infamously 90%), if not the entire reason. Now that Davis is out of the picture, it’ll be interesting to see how happy Holiday stays in New Orleans. He is a great veteran on a team undergoing a developmental phase, which makes him an added asset to all the players who can learn under his leadership.
Over the course of his ten-year professional career, Holiday has consistently played very-good-to-great basketball and he’s still cruising through the prime. He’s made just one All-Star Team but made All-Defensive First Team in 2018 and All-Defensive Second Team in 2019, cementing his star status in this league.
With such an influx of young talent, though, it’ll be interesting to see how much the Pels staff decides to put on him in year one of this reload.
David Griffin previously stated the team really plans to lean to be “the guy” this season, but if younger stars come on fast, it’ll be interesting to see how strong the team sticks to that notion. Conversely, if this thing goes south in a hurry, it would be less than a shock to see Holiday’s minutes fall off, meaning he could even become a trade candidate.