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”I’m in a really good place. Everything in my life is pretty good – family, basketball, financially,” Holiday began after practice this week, as the Pelicans prepared for a second-round playoff match-up with Golden State.
”I got a bonus this year, so that’s awesome,” Holiday added, drawing some chuckles as he referred to his whopping, five-year, $126 million contract last offseason. ”I mean, yeah. I feel pretty good.”
Once upon a time, Holiday was a young Eastern Conference All-Star guard with Philadelphia who seemed to possess a world of potential. A draft-day trade in 2013 paired him with emerging star big man Anthony Davis in New Orleans http://www.49ersauthorizedshops.com/authentic-cassius-marsh-jersey , but during the next four years, one thing or another conspired against him.
During his first season with the Pelicans, he developed a stress fracture in his lower leg that required surgery, but one of the screws used to repair the fracture became an irritant, forcing additional procedures. That wiped out much of his first two seasons. He returned on minute restrictions in his third season and showed promise, only to have that campaign cut short by a fluky eye injury caused by an inadvertent elbow to the head.
Holiday was finally healthy heading into his fourth season in New Orleans – but his wife, former U.S. Soccer star Lauren Holiday, was not. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor while pregnant with the couple’s first child, and Holiday took an extended leave of absence to attend to family.
Now the 6-foot-4 Holiday looks reinvigorated by a recent convergence of positive trends in his life.
In addition to being content with his family life and career trajectory, he’s also about as healthy as he’s been in half a decade, and his team is in the playoffs for the first time since 2015. Now he can focus purely on winning and being as feisty as it takes to do so.
”I always feel like I’m aggressive, but (playoff) games are a little different where you can key in on a certain team and be able to study them for a long time because you know you have at least four games,” Holiday explained. ”Mentally Kentavius Street Color Rush Jersey , just locking in to the matchup or the schemes or whatever it is, brings out a little more intensity.”
Holiday was a big reason the sixth-seeded Pelicans swept third-seeded Portland in the first round of the postseason. He scored 33 points in Game 2 and 41 points in the clinching Game 4. His performances have been dynamic. He’s made big perimeter shots, such as his late 3-pointer in Game 4, and he’s been a strong finisher at the rim. He shot about 57 percent for the series.
Defensively, he helped hold Portland All-Star guard Damian Lillard in check and came up with pivotal, late-game steals or blocks.
”I know what type of player he’s been since he’s been here, but I think this has been a great year for him,” Davis said. ”People are really starting to notice.”
Davis and fellow teammates have been particularly amused by the transformation of Holiday’s on-court persona, and won’t say a word to discourage it.
Holiday has rarely been all that animated on the court or much of a trash talker. But against Portland his gesticulations – or his eagerness to sprint into scuffles after a hard foul- were impossible to miss.
”I have no idea where that came from, talking smack to the fans. I’ve never seen it,” Davis said. ”I love it. If he can keep getting 40 for us then I’ll make him mad every game.
On a more serious note, Davis added, ”I think everybody just recognized the type of team that we have and realized that we can be something special Shaquem Griffin Color Rush Jersey , so it just brings a lot out in everybody.”
Veteran guard Rajon Rondo, long known to exchange verbal barbs with opponents, grinned when he recalled Holiday pointing at Jusuf Nurkic after Davis had dunked on the Portland center in Game 3.
”It’s just a different side of him. He’s playing with a lot of rage,” Rondo said. ”He’s overlooked a lot. What he’s doing now, the world’s finally seeing the real Jrue Holiday and I love every minute of it.
”He’s still a smooth player,” Rondo continued. ”But when he has a mentality of attacking and no one can stay in front of him and he can score against anyone, I think that’s when we’re at our best.”
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The NBA draft featured several big men on Thursday night, and the biggest was Mohamed Bamba.
The Orlando Magic drafted the 20-year-old center with the sixth overall pick. The young man from New York City who played one year at Texas joins a team that went 25-57 last season and has averaged only 26 wins over six straight losing seasons.
”I’m not going to sit here and say things are going to change overnight,” Bamba said. ”It’s going to take more than one person and I actually believe that with the players around me, we have the right pieces to make the organization successful.”
After a run of drafts that have helped to turn the NBA into a perimeter-oriented league, four of the top six picks selected Thursday nights were players who stand 6-foot-11 or taller. Bamba, who measured 7-foot, 3/4-inch and 226 pounds at the NBA draft combine http://www.raidersauthorizedshops.com/authentic-daryl-worley-jersey , is a half-inch taller than DeAndre Ayton, who was drafted first overall by the Phoenix Suns.
Bamba’s 7-foot-10 wingspan is reportedly the largest ever measured at the combine.
”He will be the longest player in the NBA,” said Jeff Weltman, Orlando’s president of basketball operations, ”and he has already, in his short time in college, proved to be an elite-level shot blocker.”
Weltman was ”surprised and elated that Mo fell to us at 6,” and added that it would not have possible without the swap of the third and fifth picks.
The Atlanta Hawks drafted European guard Luka Doncic with the third pick and traded him to the Dallas Mavericks for guard Trae Young, who was taken fifth.
Bamba averaged 12.9 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.7 blocks as a freshman for the Longhorns. He was second in the nation in blocked shots among Division 1 teams, and his 15 double-doubles led the Big 12 conference.
Bamba’s offensive game is considered undeveloped, but Bamba expects to make an immediate impact.
”I see myself fitting in right away as far as the trend of bigs trying to do it all,” he said. ”But it really comes down to defense. You are who you can guard in the NBA Chris Herndon Color Rush Jersey , and as long as you can guard multiple positions you can stay on the floor. And as long as you can shoot the ball you can stay on the floor.”
It is the second year in a row the Magic had the sixth overall pick in the draft.
Last year Orlando drafted 6-10 Jonathan Isaac, who is also known as a shot blocker. But Isaac was limited to 27 games due to injuries and averaged 5.4 points and 3.7 rebounds. Isaac was the tallest of the six players at the top of last year’s draft.
”There are so many things that you need to be successful, but length is a huge element of floor coverage,” Weltman said. ”If you can have it and maintain skill level and all the other things that you could list, you would always rather have it. And when you start adding it up with a lot of players, it becomes kind of a force multiplier.”
Bamba has met Isaac, and said ”he was like a role model in a sense because he was in the class ahead of me.”
Orlando’s management team, headed by Weltman and general manager John Hammond, is directing the team’s draft for only the second year.
The Magic will also have a new leader on the bench in Steve Clifford.
The former Charlotte Hornets coach was hired on May 30 to replace Frank Vogel. Clifford is Orlando’s fifth head coach since Stan Van Gundy was fired in 2012 after coaching the team’s last winning season.
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