After a ring and a gold medal, can Milwaukee's Jrue Holiday finally earn another All-Star nod?
Jrue Holiday smiled and rolled his head a bit and looked off to the distance. His single laugh indicates he’s heard it before. Is he underrated? Underappreciated?
He smiled because he knows the appropriate follow: By whom?
And the answer to that is where he puts weight.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m necessarily underappreciated because basketball, it is a game and it is a sport but it is also entertainment,” he said. “And I’m not flashy. I mean, I play hard and I’m always going to work hard and give my all but I’m also just pretty quiet and reserved, too.
“I feel like the way that I play doesn’t necessarily appeal to fans outside of Milwaukee fans or fans outside of and that know me, you know what I’m saying? I don’t high fly, dunk over people, dunk on people like Giannis. And then people don’t really find defense that pretty or notable.”
On a nightly basis, however, the Milwaukee Bucks point guard gets his flowers. Opposing coaches rave about him. Opposing players, too. Scouts. League executives.
Holiday knows, and it’s been enough.
“Yeah, I would say that in the basketball world though, in the basketball community, that’s enough for me, to get the respect from other players, other coaches,” he said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. “Because they go through what I go through. We are all trying to reach what we did last year and we know the struggle and the pain and the heartache. To I think being able to get the respect from them, that means most.”
But now, in his 13th season in the NBA – with a championship ring on his finger and gold medal around his neck – isn’t he due for some wider acclaim? Specifically, a second all-star appearance?
“Yeah, you do want the recognition from the fans and all that but at the same time I feel like me being me, I’m not really stressing over that because that’s just putting another burden on me, me trying to impress the fans who might not necessarily know basketball or like a certain style of basketball or whatever it is,” he said. “I really just looked at the guys who were in the fire with me and being able to get the respect from them.”
Holiday made his first all-star game in 2012, as a 22-year-old in Philadelphia. Typically, once you’re in the all-star queue, and at that age, you’ll be called on again.
But he was traded to New Orleans before the 2013-14 season, and his body broke down. He played 34 games his first year with the Pelicans then 40 the next as he struggled through a right leg injury. He started 23 of 65 games in 2015-16.
It wasn’t until 2016-17 when Holiday again became a full-time starter. One could argue he began to hit his peak from 2018-20, as he averaged 19.7 points, 6.8 assists and 4.7 rebounds for the Pelicans. But New Orleans made the playoffs just once.
“I was trying to figure out myself again and figure out if I was going to get back to normal, or back to zero, if I was going to get back to being like all-star level,” Holiday acknowledged. “It took me like three years. So I was really just trying to prove myself in that way, just that I’m as good as I felt like I used to be and if I could get better.
“I think by that time I started figuring out really just what the sport was about, the business side of it, and then being able to play the game I wanted to play and find things that I thought I was really good at. And by that time it was like, I’m getting respect from the people that I want to get the respect from.”
Traded to Milwaukee at the start of 2020, he was a unique addition for a Big Three. Giannis Antetokounmpo was clearly a star. Khris Middleton was coming off consecutive all-star berths. Holiday? He was a 30-year-old, 11-year vet. His game and personality were going to match, but the Bucks saw something more when they projected his long-term fit. They felt his peak was still to come.
He did, too.
“I just feel like throughout my career, which I hope a lot of people strive to do, I can honestly say that I feel like I’ve grown and I’ve gotten better,” Holiday said.
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Last season, before being placed in the league’s health and safety protocol in February, which basically knocked out that month for him, Holiday was in the East all-star conversation. But he admitted it took him time to regain his form.
Did he ever. Holiday averaged 21 points and 7.7 rebounds per game the last month of the regular season. Then in the playoffs, he did his part against Kevin Durant in the semi-finals, then averaged 22.0 points, 10 assists and 5 rebounds per game in the Eastern Conference Finals. With Antetokounmpo injured for Games 5 and 6, he averaged 26-11-7.5 to pair with Middleton and get the Bucks to the championship round.
While Antetokounmpo’s Finals performance was historic, Holiday quietly went 16.7-9.3-6.2 and, of course, was immortalized in Milwaukee with “The Steal” in Game 5 to set the Bucks up for a title clincher at home.
“He just is an incredible kind of competitor in a very kind of understated way,” Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said. “He wants to win. He’ll do anything to win and he understands the little things that go into it. And lots of times it’s taking the best player, getting stops, getting a rebound, getting a steal, getting a blocked shot. All the things that maybe aren’t as, you know, the highlight-type stuff – though he does do defensive things that are highlight-type stuff – and he’s very selfless and confident at the same time.
“He’s just got an incredible package. He’s kind of everything you’d want in a point guard, everything you want in a human. I think that’s why everybody raves about him. He’s a special person.”
Then, off to Tokyo, where he and Middleton won Olympic gold with Team USA Basketball. He is one of six players to capture an NBA championship and gold medal in the same year.
What does this have to do with an all-star berth in 2022?
A lot, actually.
“I think winning a championship, going to the Olympics, I think his career is in a good place, but he has put together seasons where you can say that (he was snubbed),” said Hall of Famer and current TNT analyst Dwyane Wade. “But now he’s on a team in the Eastern Conference where they’ve won. They’re on TV most of the time so we all get to see him more and his resume starts looking sexier than it did when he was in New Orleans.”
Of course, compliments and respect only go so far. His play has to warrant it.
While individual honors aren’t top of list, Holiday did have goals for this season. He wanted to be better at three-point and free throw shooting, but moreover he feels like his overall offensive game has become cleaner.
“I’d like to think that this year I’m more efficient than I was,” he said of his year to date. “I do get a lot of points in the paint. I think I’m using less energy getting to spots that I want to get to. I’m getting to a lot of spots that I love getting to somewhere in the paint. But I think just being more efficient, using less energy to do more and then obviously that way being able to just produce more.”
The Bucks felt this was coming, and there was excitement among the front office and coaching staff heading into the season about where Holiday’s game could go.
“I think you’re just seeing a comfort with Jrue now,” Bucks assistant Darvin Ham said. “His first year, last year, it was kind of touch and feel as you go trying to become accustomed how to play with Giannis and Khris and just blend in with all the guys in general. But this year I think coming off a championship as well as a gold medal and the big role he played for the Olympic team I think his confidence – he’s already a very confident player – his confidence is at an all-time high right now.
“‘Bud’ has encouraged him to be aggressive, we trust him, we trust his decision-making. He’s another high-IQ payer and he makes the right play more times than not. And he’s able to make something out of nothing when the clock is dwindling down and we’ve tried to execute and it’s fallen apart a little bit you can trust that he’ll come up with something positive with the ball in his hands.”
An Eastern Conference scout marveled at Holiday’s chameleon-like ability to adjust to roles game-to-game through the first half of this season due to injury and illness to Antetokounmpo (10 missed games) and Middleton (12), as well as others on the roster. Heading into the Bucks’ game against the Knicks, he had five double-doubles, had two or more steals 18 times and scored 20 or more points 19 times.
Holiday appreciated the compliment but said it’s something he’s done his entire basketball life, but acknowledged his all-star season in Philadelphia was when he figured out how to turn on different parts of his game as needed.
Then in December, he helped carry the Bucks by averaging 21.3 points, 7.3 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists while shooting 56% from the floor rand 43.5% from behind the three-point line.
“I think he’s getting better,” said Antetokounmpo, unknowingly affirming the feelings of the front office from the year before.
“From a year ago, from two years ago, he was a great player but I think he’s getting better. And not like how a lot of teammates come on and they say that oh, he has to be an all-star and all that. I think, for me, he’s playing an all-star level of basketball right now. He’s getting to his spot, he’s getting teammates involved, he’s defending really well. He’s just making it tough. You can never find a point guard nowadays that can do it both ways.
“As I’ve said he’s gotten more comfortable, he’s gotten way, way better and he’s going to keep getting better in our system. He’s playing at a high level right now.”
Due to Holiday’s own injuries – and the slow returns to form thereafter – he is averaging 17.8 points, 6.4 assists and 3.7 rebounds per game in 37 games. The raw numbers don’t match up with other Eastern Conference guard contenders, but in the final voting he finished sixth in the media vote, 13th by the fans and 14th by the players. And, of course, there is immeasurable impact of Holiday’s game-to-game, possession-by-possession defense.
“He doesn’t make mistakes,” Golden State guard Stephen Curry said simply.
Toronto head coach Nick Nurse said he goes into a game having to account for where Holiday will be deployed defensively. An Eastern Conference scout said Holiday’s ambidextrous style on offense creates issues in the paint, an assessment echoed by New Orleans head coach Willie Green. Chicago head coach Billy Donovan credited Holiday’s ability to drive into the teeth of the defense, and Cleveland head coach J.B. Bickerstaff acknowledged there is not an “easy way” to prevent Holiday from getting to where he wants to go with the ball.
“I always thoughts he should’ve been an all-star player,” said Sacramento interim coach Alvin Gentry, who coached Holiday in New Orleans.
All-star reserves will not be named until Feb. 3, and perhaps its only appropriate such a decision on Holiday will come from the coaches – a group that for years has been professing their admiration of his game.
“Guys get better,” Antetokounmpo said. “Throughout the year they improve. I think when Jrue came in, like he was good, but I feel like he’s way better right now. He’s much more improved.
“If you could ask for a perfect point guard to have out there that’s going to play every single game, you cannot ask for somebody better than Jrue. He can defend. He can play make. He can shoot. He can get to the basket. He is a great leader. He’s a great teammate. He is a great guy to be around. He’s always keeping his composure. He always gives everything throughout the game that he has.
“You cannot ask for nothing more than that.”