New Orleans Pelicans: Sorry, J.J., but Jrue Holiday Wasn’t Snubbed

The New Orleans Pelicans were too bad defensively for Jrue Holiday to make the All-Defensive team.

The NBA announced its All-Defensive team yesterday and New Orleans Pelicans’ combo guard Jrue Holiday was not on the list.

This made a lot of people angry, as Jrue Holiday is known around the league as one of the best defensive guards.

Fans and players alike took to Twitter to air their complaints that Jrue Holiday was snubbed. J.J Redick went off on a multi-Tweet rant making the case for Holiday.

Damian Lillard, who has been locked down by Jrue Holiday many tines, agreed, saying it was “beyond a snub.”

Sorry, and with all due respect to J.J. and Dame, but they’re wrong.

New Orleans Pelicans: Jrue Holiday was good, but not deserving of All-Defensive team.

Jrue Holiday is an excellent defender and certainly has All-Defensive talent. In fact, if he were on a better defensive team, there is no doubt he would have made one of the two All-Defensive teams.

But he’s not. The Pelicans had the league’s 20th ranked defense and were even worse in the bubble, where they couldn’t stop anyone on the perimeter or in the paint.

The Pelicans had the worst defensive rating in the NBA for guards, and regardless of what you think of Jrue, there is no way a player can be rewarded for that.

Also, who exactly is he replacing? The first team of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons, Rudy Gobert and Marcus Smart is pretty much unanimous. The second team guards, Patrick Beverley and Eric Bledsoe are also very good.

Jrue Holiday had 1.9 DWS to Beverley’s 2.0 and Bledsoe’s 3.0, but did have more steals per game than either of them, which is his strongest argument.

Reputation among your peers is not a criteria, nor should it be, otherwise LeBron James would be on the first team, as he is still one of the best defensive players in the league when he turns it on.

It’s not about what players think or about what you can do in short bursts, but an award for the whole season. Bledsoe and Beverley are on two of the top defensive teams in the league, so though it was close, they should get the nod over Holiday, whose team was terrible defensively.

Normally I agree with J.J. Redick but this time he got it wrong. If Jrue Holiday wants to make an All-Defensive team, then the Pelicans’ defense actually needs to be good.