Player Facts
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 205lbs.
Date of Birth: June 12, 1990
College Experience: UCLA (1 year)
Selections
All Star: 2
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 5
Player Grades
Speed/Explosiveness: 8
Physical Strength: 8
Positional Size: 8
Positional Wingspan: 8
Paint Scoring: 7
Midrange Scoring: 8
Three-Point Scoring: 8
Dribbling: 8
Passing: 8
Perimeter Defense: 10
Interior Defense: 7
Rebounding: 6
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STRENGTHS
Intro
Jrue is a sturdily built 6'3" combo guard with deceptive bounce. He is a very well-rounded player on both ends of the court. A steadying presence for his team, Holiday chips in across the board. He is in the Association's upper crust in terms of perimeter defenders.
Setting the Table
Holiday excels when tasked with initiating the team offense. He is unselfish and willingly makes the extra pass when appropriate. In the pick-and-roll, Jrue's high basketball IQ shines, reading the play smartly as it unfolds. He makes lobs, skips, and pocket passes with precision.
He stands out as a drive-and-kick passer. After using cunning dribble moves in concert with his strength to penetrate the defense, he locates and fires assists to shooters.
Overall, Jrue accounted for 1254 points created directly off his assists in 2018-2019. This tenth-best NBA mark that year was higher than Chris Paul and Kemba Walker. 2021-2022 had him finish up with a solid 2.50 AST/TO ratio.
Functional Strength
As a scorer in the half-court, Holiday has a diverse skillset. One way he piles up buckets efficiently is through his shifty drives. In isolation or after a screen, Jrue gets downhill and finishes well with either hand at the cup - he looks to finish with his left often. The former UCLA Bruin is a very stable, controlled finisher at guard.
Jrue's 14.9 drives per night in 2019-2020 provides a window into his attacking mindset. This figure beat out Devin Booker, Zach LaVine, and Brandon Ingram that season.
Holiday embarks on powerful straight-line drives, equipped with the core and lower body strength to preserve his driving angle the whole way through. His strong frame enables him to initiate contact with bigs and finish strong. He is often able to get into the chest of help men as he goes straight up.
Before even rising up inside, he'll get multiple body bumps in to carve out space en route to the rack. Holiday can hang in the air with them, double pumping for a stable layup attempt as his man descends.
Being a big guard, Jrue can utilize the post as a scoring hub. When he holds the size advantage on his defender, he looks to capitalize. He likes to spin hard toward the baseline to wedge his body between his man and the ball.
Using Ball Screens
The screen-and-roll is another productive scoring medium for Jrue. He loves rejecting the screen with a sharp crossover in order to get into his comfortable midrange area. In particular, the 6'3" guard aims to arrive about 12-14 feet of the hoop for close-range jumpers. Holiday shows great feel in this facet of his game.
He possesses a refined in-between game full of floaters and runners. 2017-2018 saw him score the fourth-most baskets in the league from 5 to 9 feet of the hoop. With a strong 48% clip here, the only players to score more in this area were 6'10" or taller.
In his inaugural season as a Milwaukee Buck, Jrue came into his own as an off-the-bounce shooter. Adding this weapon and even some step-back threes into his arsenal helped open up his ball screen game. He connected on a flat 40% of his pull-up three-balls across this 2020-2021 campaign.
Complementary Skillset
When playing alongside a nominal point guard, Jrue excels on the basis of his off-ball prowess. His strengths as an off-ball player include smart cutting and dependable catch-and-shoot numbers.
He knocked down 39.5% of his catch-and-shoot looks in 2017-2018. Fast-forwarding to 2020-2021, Holiday drilled his spot-up treys created by the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton to the tune of 37.9%. On the whole, Jrue is well equipped to play the role of either primary playmaker or secondary creator.
Open Court Production
In transition, Holiday is an excellent player. He manufacturers several fast-break opportunities due to his hounding defensive abilities. On the break, he can effectively lead or be the recipient of a pass to finish strong. Jrue is competent at using either hand for layups to cap off the break.
Top Tier Defense
The defensive end is where Holiday is truly elite. He has the mixture of physical tools that are demanded of a premier perimeter stopper. Beyond these, his keen attentiveness, communicative nature, and overarching defensive intellect further drive his impact here.
He has extremely active, strong hands that help him prey on mediocre-to-weak ball-handlers. One-on-one, he forecasts where his man will be and can arrive there first to cut them off. Furthermore, Holiday's anticipation skills allow for calculated bursts into the passing lane for steals. 2020-2021 saw him finish inside of the league's top ten for steals amassed.
Beyond outright plucks, the UCLA product tips and disrupts many other passes each and every night. Jrue averaged the second most deflections per game in 2019-2020 behind only Fred VanVleet.
In the following season, his 3.2 deflections per night were bested by only a small group including names like Jimmy Butler and Robert Covington. When a gamble goes awry, Holiday has the wherewithal to recover back into the play.
Defensive Malleability
He is highly versatile defensively in both who and how he guards. For example, he has the range to defend all guards and some bigger forwards. An elongated 6'7" wingspan at guard is helpful towards his efforts here.
He possesses the stylistic flexibility to defend taller scorers beyond the arc just as effectively as he guards post-ups. Holiday tends to front his man in the post whenever possible, making the initial entry pass much more difficult. His physical strength really plays in these instances.
Holiday's defensive capabilities are largely captured in his numbers defending the pick-and-roll. Screen-and-roll ball-handlers were held to a paltry 0.74 points per possession when guarded by Jrue in 2018-2019. With his great footwork and strength, he placed in the 87th percentile for his defense here - ahead of Kawhi Leonard and Ben Simmons.
Off-Ball Impact on D
Jrue is similarly superb defending off-ball as he is with his man defense. He is always engaged which helps determine where he should be positioned. As the low man, Holiday properly rotates and provides ample interior resistance at his size.
Holiday fights aggressively to get over picks if his man is a capable shooter. Moreover, Jrue has the strength to recover with a solid shot contest after absorbing contact with the screen-setter. This same level of tenacity is seen as he chases shooters around off-ball as well, intelligently reading when to shoot the gap.
He has outstanding balance and the length to contest jump shooters under control. In 2019-2020, he held the shooters he guarded to a valuable 2% below their average three-point clip.
Defending in Pressurized Situations + Rebounding
One of the greatest testaments to Holiday's lockdown defense is how he defended Damian Lillard in the 2018 NBA playoffs. Holiday guarded Lillard on the vast majority of Portland's possessions during that postseason series.
Damian was a relatively efficient 26.9 points per game scorer that regular season. However, he averaged a meager 18.5 points on 35.2% from the field and 30% from three in that series.
As a prime example of Jrue's defensive versatility, he followed the Portland playoff series up by doing an admirable job defending the Warriors' formidable offensive weapons. He spent time guarding Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. It is truly remarkable that he can adequately defend players of such varying sizes and skillsets.
As a guard, Jrue does his part on the glass. He contributes well in this area thanks to his strength and positioning skills. His helpful defensive rebounding caps off what is a magnificent defensive profile for Holiday. 2020-2021 had him nab over 5 total boards per-36.
WEAKNESSES
Offensive Issues
Jrue had a strong season in 2020-2021 shooting from long range. However, the larger sample size of his career paints him as more of an average shooter than a knockdown one. Opposing teams will still go under on screens against him, lacking the elite pull-up status of some other star guards.
He is a streaky shooter from the free-throw line. As a high usage guard, he should be cashing in at the stripe with much better efficiency. Also, he could stand to be more aggressive in drawing fouls.
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