Jrue Randall Holiday was born in Chatsworth, a district in the San Fernando Valley region, located in the city of Los Angeles, in the state of California. He was born on June 12, 1990, the second of three brothers, all of them basketball players. Justin was born a year early and Aaron six years later. The love for basketball began early, but no one imagined that he would reach where he has reached. To Olympus, to the top of the NBA, the best League in the world. A competition in which the point guard, 34 years after his birth (he celebrated his birthday in the middle of the Finals), has established himself as that rare bird that no one notices until he does it, that everyone underestimates until they want him. : the typical key, essential player, necessary to finish forming a favorite ring for the title. A clear and completely winning squad. A secondary that acts as both a leader and a tertiary. A shadow titan leading his team into the light.
That has been Jrue’s role, one that has been changing and that the point guard has accepted thanks to his chameleon-like ability. He was part of the squad of those last competitive Sixers, those who took the ashes turned into ashes that Allen Iverson and the long shadow of him had left. Those led by Andre Iguodala, who later in the Warriors became a profile similar to what Holiday has had in the last five years. Those who took the last competitive Celtics of the big three (Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and a Rajon Rondo who in those playoffs was better than any of them) to seven agonizing games in the Conference semifinals. That round that has remained the Sixers’ ceiling since 2001 (Iverson, Dikembe Murombo, Larry Brown Brown on the bench…) and that not even The Process, with Joel Embiid at the helm, has managed to surpass. And the worst thing is that it doesn’t seem like they are going to do it in the short term.
That’s another history. Jrue left for the Pelicans at the dawn of the (bad, and ultimately terrible) reconstruction of the Sixers. In New Orleans, a franchise was created that inherited the history of the Hornets from the same city, while the Bobcats accepted the nomenclature in Charlotte under the shelter of Michael Jordan’s wing and his chain of bad decisions. Holiday spent seven seasons there, tutoring Anthony Davis’ formation and making a new unsuccessful, but exciting, foray into the 2018 playoffs. He surrendered with astonishing ease to Rondo’s ball control, he made an essential hole in a squad of good secondary players (E’Twaun Moore, Nikola Mirotic…) and they made up for DeMarcus Cousins’ injury at the beginning of his particular fall to hell to sweep the Blazers in the first round and steal a game from one of the best teams in history, those Warriors who consolidated their dynasty that season with their third title in their fourth Finals. All of them consecutive.
Tireless, Jrue continued with the Pelicans with impeccable behavior. The team did not return to the playoffs, but the point guard continued to make a name for himself. In 2018-19, orphaned by the teammates who had triumphed the previous season and with the farce surrounding Anthony Davis planning on the franchise (in the summer he ended up with the Lakers) and the end of the project, he remained undaunted and achieved his best season on an individual level: 21.2 points, 5 rebounds and 7.7 assists. The coronavirus season was the last of an idea that was already known to be over. The market was emerging, the experience amassed by Jrue was a fact and the possibilities of playing on a competitive team were emerging. The Bucks were looking for the definitive piece to make the jump to the ring. And George Hill, along with Eric Bledsoe, were pieces that could take us somewhere else. That’s how it went.
From the ring to goodbye
Jrue came to the Bucks to become the anchor, the perfect amulet. The light in the darkness. Many had said that Giannis Antetokounmpo couldn’t win, but the tables quickly turned. Jrue, who was part of the Best Defensive Quintet of the season (something he has achieved three times in his career), went to 17.7 points in the regular season and 16.7 in the Finals, with that comeback of the Bucks against the Suns who gave the Milwaukee franchise the promised ring, the first in 50 years. A feat with a step forward in sports that was responsible for the summer signing, that heavenly being capable of contributing on both sides of the court, of not making mistakes and of appearing at the launch if necessary. The defense of Chris Paul and Devin Booker was key. And the offensive moments, too: 21 points in the third round, at the beginning of the comeback. And 27, with 13 assists, in an absolutely incredible fifth.
The next two years were not so peaceful. First, with a second round loss to the Celtics in seven games. Then, with an early elimination against the Heat, after finishing first in the Eastern Conference, he accelerated the end of a series of changes that caused an internal reconstruction that turned the entity upside down: Mike Budenholzer left through the door from behind after being the winner of the title two years earlier and Giannis left his renewal in the air with the mythical phrase that he wanted to win championships, with the Bucks or anywhere else. The Greek demanded another star, one that would reinforce the squad. He was involved behind the scenes in the hiring of Adrian Griffin and then in his strange firing, signing of Doc Rivers. But some player had to be sacrificed. And it was Jrue’s turn.
A move that ended badly… for the Bucks
The Milwaukee franchise, wanting to get a star that could tie up Giannis, went after Damian Lillard, who ended his time with the Blazers after an entire era of scoring feats and failures in the playoffs. The movement was already curious at the beginning: a star consolidated by a player who had lowered his performance in the final phase of the last two seasons and was beginning to show the symptoms of age and the accumulation of seasons in the NBA. But everything went wrong: Lillard’s defensive defects broke down the game system of a team that did not know what it was doing on the court, and the rapport and group feeling of recent seasons, including the ups and downs on the bench, ended up crushing the morale of a team. team whose end was precipitated by injuries.
But the worst thing wasn’t that: Jrue didn’t even pack his bags to go to Oregon and wanted to wait. Despite its theoretical drop in level, it had become one of the most sought-after pieces on the market overnight. The previous year he had added his second All Star ten years after the first (2013 and 2023) and had the capacity to defend almost any outside player, within limits. And the Bucks did not expect that: four days after joining the Blazers, on October 1, he was traded to the Boston Celtics in exchange for Malcolm Brogdon and Robert Williams III. A perfect move, a glove that Brad Stevens picked up from the offices and an acquisition that joined that of Kristaps Porzingis so that the greens went from eternal candidates to top favorites. Something that has been confirmed less than a year later. It’s what he has.
The consolidation
Jrue is back to who he was with the Celtics. With a lower contribution in attack (12.5 points), something logical if we take into account the fine balance of the distribution of stripes in a team that has had eight players with 8.6 points or more, five over ten two already over twenty. But he has once again been key in what has been an absolute tour of green pride: 64 victories in the regular season, 80 at the end with an extraordinary 16-2 in the playoffs, an absolute hammer. 4-1 in the first round to the Heat, the nightmare shatters. The same result against the Cavs in the Conference semifinals. And two unanswerable sweeps, against the Pacers in the Eastern finals and against the Mavericks in the NBA Finals. It is of no use that they played against injured opponents or that the level was what it was. A champion is forever. And the Celtics are for the second time since 1986 and for the first time in 16 years. Almost nothing.
And then there is Jrue, who signed an extension when he arrived with the greens for 135 million in four seasons, as if Boston did not want to make the mistake that the Bucks made before. Of course: “I don’t know how the Bucks allowed us to get him, but I am very happy that we have him on our team, we are very lucky. He just makes winning plays…he raises the bar for everyone else. in defence “. These are the words of Jayson Tatum into the TNT microphones after the conclusion of the third round. In the second, the point guard was the hero with 26 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists. The unparalleled titan who was affected by the first move that Sam Hinkie made in the Sixers to begin a process that has ended with the Philadelphia team in the quagmire and the point guard making the Bucks and Celtics champions. A good roadmap with the underlying error of the Sixers, and in the ways of the Bucks themselves, who gave their great rival in the East a piece of countless value.
Holiday even became a candidate for a Finals MVP that ended up in the hands of Jaylen Brown. And, with the championship in his pocket, more voices are rising to vindicate the player and talk about the Bucks’ mistake, like that of a Draymond Green who always has an opinion on everything. The thing is what it is: Giannis promoted a move that was partly logical and that his entity made to ensure the Greek’s permanence, which he finally renewed. Objective accomplished, the rest is all a posteriori arguments. The play went wrong in Milwaukee, which was immersed in many problems during the regular season, but managed to get Antetokounmpo to stay. But it didn’t turn out bad because of that, positive within the bad. But because the fetish player ended up in the eternal rival. And the eternal rival winning the ring. Sometimes, everything turns out the opposite of what you had planned. Things that happen.
Beyond that, the figure of Holiday is the one that ends up absolutely vindicated. A player totally respected in the locker room unanimously (three-time winner of the Partner of the Year award), about whom everyone says good things and who forms a couple, literally and romantically, with his wife Lauren, both of whom are committed totally and absolutely with social causes that fight against racism. An exercise in fantastic goodness off the slopes and an impressive one, by Jrue, on them. That puts a new finishing touch to an impressive career, passing through the champion Bucks and the Celtics who are already champions as well. A great player, difference, the less responsibilities he has, the more he assumes. That he moves between the intangible and the not so intangible. That he lives and dreams for and to do things well. A desired profile, that shines and lets it shine. A great guy.
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2024-06-22 06:23:02
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