Jrue Holiday: Mr. Basketball, "Process" castoff ... Champion Glue Guy

SB Nation

Jrue Holiday will go down as a beloved, perpetually underrated X-factor contributor to multiple championship teams. But that wasn't always in the cards for him. He was a superstar prospect ... until college kinda hurt his reputation. He was a rising All-Star in Philly ... until the Sixers totally changed direction. And he was kind of an afterthought entering his 30s ... until he found his way back into contention, and into the All-Star Game. This is the story of a guy whose career took several unexpected turns, but ended up somewhere excellent.

Transcript

00:00Drew Holliday will always be known

00:03as an NBA championship X-factor.

00:06Holliday wasn't the central superstar

00:08of the 2021 champion Milwaukee Bucks,

00:11but Giannis Anacompo didn't get a ring

00:13until he had Drew by his side.

00:16Same goes for Jason Tatum and the Boston Celtics.

00:19They flirted with glory for years until, boom,

00:22Drew arrived and pushed them over the edge.

00:25It's not hard to figure out why Holliday

00:27was a repeat missing ingredient.

00:29Over a decade plus in the NBA,

00:32he earned a reputation

00:33as your favorite player's favorite player.

00:36A boundlessly versatile defender,

00:37like truly a master of the defensive arts.

00:41Erudite and rugged enough to stop anyone.

00:44A well-rounded but never domineering offensive talent.

00:47A rock solid teammate

00:49and a likable community-oriented human being.

00:53A baller, a winner, a class act,

00:55and sure enough, as soon as he had a real opportunity,

00:59a champion in multiple cities.

01:01To understand the Drew we now know,

01:04it helps to understand the Drews we saw before

01:07and the Drews who could have been.

01:10Let's meet these versions of Drew Holliday in the prism.

01:23Drew Holliday's talent is unique

01:25and his resume is excellent,

01:27but no one would mistake him for a superstar.

01:30That word just doesn't describe the way he plays

01:33nor the type of attention he receives for his NBA career.

01:36High school Drew was different.

01:38Drew grew up in Los Angeles, California,

01:41and he grew up in basketball.

01:43Every single member of his family played D1 ball,

01:47both parents and all three of his siblings.

01:50Two of those siblings joined him in the NBA.

01:53Drew though was the star,

01:55not just of the Holliday clan,

01:57but of the entire state.

01:58As a high school senior,

02:00Drew piloted Campbell Hall School

02:01to its third title in four years

02:04by filling up the entire stat sheet,

02:06earning state Mr. Basketball honors.

02:09And this isn't a California senior class

02:11packed with future NBA stars.

02:14The names DeMar DeRozan, Klay Thompson, Paul George,

02:18all pop off the list in hindsight.

02:20Even in that company, Drew was the guy.

02:24He won National Player of the Year in 08,

02:26starred in the All-American game,

02:28and ranked at or near the top of every prospect list.

02:33If Holliday had graduated just a couple years prior,

02:36he probably would have jumped straight to the NBA

02:39and become one of the top draft picks.

02:42But since he arrived after the league

02:44instituted its age limit,

02:46Holliday attended college.

02:47And here we reach a fascinating fork in the road.

02:51Every basketball school in the country wanted Drew,

02:54obviously.

02:55But Drew passed on those offers

02:57and the chance to play with his brother Justin

02:59at Washington.

03:00He wanted to stay home and attend UCLA.

03:03Now, it would be wrong to call this choice a mistake

03:07given what we know now.

03:08Holliday became an excellent and accomplished

03:11and very wealthy NBA player,

03:13and I will add, he met his wife

03:15during his one year in college.

03:17But actually, the way Drew met his wife

03:20tells us something about why UCLA

03:23wasn't necessarily the right fit.

03:25Before she was Lauren Holliday,

03:27professional and international soccer player,

03:30she was Lauren Chaney, UCLA soccer player.

03:34And the story goes that Lauren Chaney

03:36met her future husband because she observed a child

03:39trying to get the autograph of Bruins star Darren Collison,

03:42only to discover with disappointment

03:44that she was actually talking to Drew.

03:47Lauren chimed in, and the rest is history.

03:51But let's talk about Darren Collison.

03:54In 2005, Collison was UCLA's key backcourt recruit.

03:59Collison played behind star point guard Jordan Farmar

04:02for a season, then Farmar left for the NBA

04:05and Collison ascended.

04:06In 2006, Russell Westbrook was UCLA's key backcourt recruit.

04:12Westbrook played behind star point guard Darren Collison

04:14for a season, then Collison stayed for his junior year.

04:19Yeah.

04:21When Drew Holliday committed to UCLA in 2007,

04:24the Bruins were stacked at his position.

04:26Westbrook was starting beside the elder Collison.

04:30But after the Bruins made yet another Final Four in 2008,

04:34everyone expected the live jam to clear.

04:37Collison would join star forward Kevin Love

04:39in entering the NBA draft.

04:41Westbrook would become UCLA's starting point guard

04:44no matter what, with Holliday as his freshman apprentice.

04:47The cycle would continue.

04:49But it didn't work like that.

04:50Even without a huge role, the sophomore Westbrook

04:53rocketed up draft boards enough that he decided

04:56to bolt early for the NBA.

04:58Collison, meanwhile, decided to return again

05:02to play his senior college season.

05:04So this was not the situation Drew Holliday expected

05:07when he got to campus.

05:09Holliday profiled as a natural point guard,

05:11perhaps even more so than Westbrook.

05:14But just like Russ, he had to play off ball a lot

05:17while Collison held down his one spot.

05:19Playing out of position beside a star point guard

05:22in coach Ben Howland's slow down system,

05:25Holliday's freshman numbers didn't look so hot,

05:28especially compared to his ridiculous high school stats.

05:31But instead of waiting out Collison's graduation

05:34and proving himself as a sophomore,

05:36Holliday opted to take a gamble

05:38and enter the 2009 NBA draft.

05:4109 was a point guard draft.

05:43And while I can't say it for sure,

05:45I strongly suspect a Drew Holliday

05:47who had played somewhere other than UCLA

05:50would have been right up there

05:51with these guys atop draft boards.

05:54Instead, he was disadvantaged

05:56not only by sharing the spotlight with Collison,

05:58but by being compared to Westbrook.

06:01In the 08 draft, Russ had the obvious raw athleticism

06:05to win over NBA teams

06:06despite his overshadowed college career.

06:09Holliday's potential was subtler

06:11and he just didn't have quite the same juice at draft time.

06:15Thus, Holliday slipped all the way out of the lottery

06:18to the Philadelphia 76ers at 17.

06:21He might've gone even lower

06:23if he weren't so impressive in his workouts.

06:25Nobody anticipated this NBA pipeline

06:28for the Drew Holliday they saw in high school.

06:30But there he was in 2009

06:33and here he was a decade and a half later.

06:36All's well that ends well.

06:37But what happened in between?

06:41Well, the 76ers hit on their draft pick.

06:43Holliday proved he could defend NBA players

06:46even as a teenager.

06:47He ran the offense plenty and looked good doing it.

06:51Drew shot well from downtown,

06:52wiping away the primary red flag on his college resume.

06:56And Holliday only improved on that solid rookie season.

06:59And the Sixers improved with him.

07:01They made it back to the playoffs in 2011,

07:03then made it into the second round in 2012.

07:06You might remember that conference semifinal battle

07:08with the Celtics from the documentary film, Uncut Gems.

07:12Anyway, 2012 is when Drew and the Sixers began to diverge.

07:17In the 12-13 season,

07:18Holliday fully broke out as an all-star,

07:21scoring and creating more than ever before

07:24with the same great work on defense.

07:27In that same 12-13 season,

07:29the Sixers walked headfirst into franchise-altering disaster.

07:34This right here is one of the largest

07:36and in retrospect, grimmest trades in NBA history.

07:41For our purposes, the Sixers gave up multiple good players

07:45in exchange for a package centered around Andrew Bynum,

07:48a very good player and hypothetical co-star

07:51whose bizarre injury saga prevented him

07:54from playing a single game in Philadelphia.

07:57The Sixers went from decent to mediocre in an instant.

08:01They fired their general manager

08:03and replaced him with a fella called Sam Henke,

08:05who quickly determined that the best way to recover

08:08from the post-trade mediocrity was to steer into the skid.

08:11He would empty out the roster,

08:13tank for high draft picks, and rebuild from scratch.

08:17This brazen tank job and its partial but undeniable payoff

08:21would come to be called The Process.

08:24And the first victim of The Process was Drew Holliday.

08:28What do you do with a 23-year-old point guard

08:30who just led your team in scoring and assists?

08:33You turn him into draft capital, baby.

08:35For his All-Star ascent, Drew was rewarded

08:38with a sudden draft night trade to the freshly renamed

08:42and actively terrible New Orleans Pelicans.

08:45On paper, this stretch looks like a deep valley

08:49spanning the prime of Holliday's career.

08:51Drew's Pelicans had a losing record during his tenure.

08:54They won just a single playoff series in seven years.

08:58Holliday's numbers dipped,

08:59and he didn't make another All-Star team

09:01the whole time he was in New Orleans.

09:03In fact, the gap between Holliday's 2013 All-Star selection

09:08and his selection in 2023 as a Milwaukee Buck

09:11represents the longest such gap in history up to that point.

09:15Some of that, of course, was environment.

09:18Holliday played alongside a young,

09:20budding superstar, Anthony Davis,

09:21for most of that New Orleans stint,

09:23and thus reverted to his second fiddle role.

09:26But injury played a part, too.

09:28Holliday missed huge chunks of his New Orleans tenure

09:31because of leg surgery, then eye socket surgery,

09:34then abdominal surgery.

09:36And this was also a trying time for non-basketball reasons.

09:40In 2016, while pregnant, Lauren Holliday was diagnosed

09:44with a benign brain tumor.

09:46Drew took a leave of absence to be home with his wife,

09:49who thankfully gave birth to a healthy daughter,

09:52then had the tumor successfully removed.

09:55It wasn't until around year five in New Orleans

09:57that Holliday found full health and availability

10:01and started to help lead the Pelicans toward success.

10:04And then Davis bailed, and the Pelicans decided

10:06to rebuild around Zion Williamson.

10:09The point is, this was not how Drew or anyone else

10:12hoped his seven years in New Orleans might go.

10:15This was well below the trajectory

10:17established in Philadelphia.

10:19And yet, perhaps more so than any other oft-injured player

10:24for an oft-losing team, Holliday will never have

10:27to buy a drink in New Orleans.

10:29He's cool with Pelicans fans for life.

10:32Why?

10:33Well, because he persisted through the tough stuff

10:36and made the most of his role.

10:38By the end of that Pelicans tenure,

10:40premier opponents were starting to call Drew

10:43the best defender in the NBA,

10:45even though he had never won that award.

10:47It's also because Holliday was a world-renowned sweetie

10:51who endeared himself not just to coworkers,

10:54but to the whole community,

10:55with which he developed a real connection.

10:57And because even in the post-Davis rebuild,

11:00Holliday insisted he was ready to commit to the Pelicans.

11:04Who knows if Drew actually would have stayed

11:06if he hit free agency as a Pelican,

11:08but suffice to say, he did not force his way out.

11:12If things went better with Davis,

11:13or even if the aftermath of his departure

11:16shook out differently, the Pelicans may have gone all out

11:19to keep Drew.

11:20If Drew didn't work toward

11:21that elite defensive reputation in New Orleans,

11:24contending teams wouldn't have bid for his services.

11:28He may not have had this late career run of excellence,

11:31but that is Drew Holliday's story.

11:33Each step of the way,

11:35the outcome wasn't exactly what people expected,

11:37and perhaps not what Holliday himself would have chosen.

11:41And yet, thanks to the kind of player Holliday is

11:44and person he seems to be,

11:46all those unexpected turns led him here,

11:49to the kind of impact and career legacy

11:51any athlete would love to have.

11:54The missing piece, the most underrated,

11:58your favorite player's favorite player,

11:59the X-factor on teams

12:01that couldn't have won it all without him.

Category

Transcript

Recommended