The New Orleans Pelicans shipped out fan-favorite Jrue Holiday this offseason. Here’s a look at his 3 biggest moments in the Crescent City.
For seven seasons, the New Orleans Pelicans had one of the most underrated players in the league holding down a guard spot in the starting lineup. Jrue Holiday was a player all Pels fans loved.
Every fanbase in every city likes to think of themselves as hard hat and lunch pail type of people, but very few players embody that ideal more than Jrue. He is the kind of player who lets his play do the talking, unlike another former Pelican.
The 2019-20 Teammate of the Year Award winner, Holiday is clearly well respected by the other players in the locker room and executives around the league (easy to see why the price for him was so high). The criteria for this award isn’t just on-court mentorship and selflessness but off-court leadership as well. Holiday was likely a finalist for this award when the season paused in March but pushed past the other contenders by donating his bubble salary to causes close to his heart.
On top of the goodwill off the court, Holiday departs New Orleans in the top five of nearly every statistical category. Had Jrue stayed in New Orleans for the remainder of his career there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have his jersey retired by the team. This is no small feat considering the franchise has retired just one number, Pete Maravich’s number 7, and the Pistol died two years before Holiday was even born.
On the day Holiday makes his first return trip to Nola, let’s take a look at the 3 biggest moments from Holiday’s career with New Orleans.
Honorable Mention – Donating his remaining salary
I touched on this earlier but it’s worth bringing up again. Following the protest around the United States, Holiday felt that he could do something tangible that would have a positive impact on his community. How did he accomplish that? By donating his remaining 2019-20 salary to the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Justice Impact Fund.
This amounted to about five million dollars to be split up among nonprofits in New Orleans, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Compton along with small businesses and HBCUs. The Holiday family has dealt with their fair share of ups and downs in the last few years and could’ve chosen to look out for themselves over others but instead chose to give. “God has blessed us with so much. We know a couple of important things are time and money, and right now, we have both.” Holiday said.
This donation will be felt by the recipients of that money for a long time. The city of Milwaukee has its own set of issues and now another player within that organization to improve them.
Number Three – Dec 30, 2013
This may not be a game that sticks out in fan’s minds but it was a very important proof of concept game. This was way back in the first season of the Jrue and Davis pairing and just a few months into AD’s career. The Trailblazers came into New Orleans with a playoff-caliber team led by LaMarcus Aldridge and rookie Damian Lillard.
This game gave us a glimpse into the one possible future where AD and Jrue were both dominant two-way players wreaking havoc on both ends of the floor for 40 minutes a night. Holiday finished not too far away from a triple-double with a 31 point, 13 assist, seven rebound performance.
The New Orleans Pelicans had just four players score double-digit points, perhaps some foreshadowing of the actual future in front of this team. The two stars had great nights, but there wasn’t much production from the rest of the roster. Tyreke Evans chipped in with 20 points off the bench, including hitting the game-winning jumper with just 1.2 seconds left. The Pelicans would win this game by just two points 110-108.
Jrue was the point guard for this game, filling a role he wasn’t always keen to do but was capable of nonetheless. At the time this 13 assist performance tied the franchise high for the season. If New Orleans had added a few different pieces in the years following, we may have been looking at a perennial playoff team that was just entering their physical prime.
This is a moment where we got a glimpse of what could have been.
New Orleans Pelicans: Jrue Holiday returns to New Orleans
Number Two – Back to Back All-Defense
Holiday staked his claim to best defensive guard in the NBA with this two-year stretch. Holiday was named to back-to-back All-Defense teams in 2017-18 (1st team) and 2018-19 (2nd team). In that stretch, only one other player landed a place in both seasons, Joel Embiid, and he was a two-time 2nd teamer.
Well known in league circles as a standout defender Jrue routinely put the clamps on some of the league’s premier scorers. It was around this time that the “most underrated” tag really started sticking to Holiday and he’s had a hard time shaking that notion ever since (when does someone become properly rated?).
Listed at 6-3, 205lb, Holiday rarely had the size advantage against anyone he played against. That didn’t matter Jrue didn’t let that get in the way. In his back to back All-Defense seasons, Holiday recorded 232 steals and 118 blocks in 148 games.
When listening to players around the league talk about who they think is the best defender in the game, Holiday’s name comes up time and time again. His defensive stats may not be what they were during this two-year run but he can summon that effort when necessary.
But his best moment was a performance in a single game.
New Orleans Pelicans: Jrue Holiday’s biggest moments in New Orleans
Number One – April 21, 2018
No not the Sublime song, although this performance did light fires around New Orleans. The single best game the franchise has had since rebranding to the Pelicans and maybe since the return to New Orleans in 2002. This game was like a Nike Showcase game for Jrue and Anthony Davis to display their talents for the whole world to see.
Facing off against the third-seeded Portland Trailblazers, the Pelicans never seemed scared and instead took the fight straight to the Blazers. Led by All-NBA first-teamer Damian Lillard and fellow underrated star CJ McCollum, the Blazers were swept out of the first round by the upstart Pelicans.
A 41 point performance in the series-clinching game showed the Holiday is a top-level scorer when he wants to be. The final stat line or Holiday was overshadowed by AD’s (stop me if you’ve heard that before), but 41 points and eight assists are nothing to sneeze at in a nine-point win.
Jrue also played some outstanding defense throughout the series routinely holding the Portland backcourt to under 40 points. No small feat given the pair averaged about 48 points per game that season. This win got New Orleans back to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2009.
I know if there was a packed arena tonight fans would give Holiday a standing ovation for everything he’s meant to this franchise and city since arriving here as a 23-year-old. Let’s all remember the good times as we wish him well, as I’m sure he’s doing the same thing for his former teammates, now opponents.