Did Jrue Holiday go from underrated to overrated?

[Godymas]

It's interesting how those years Jrue spent on those hopeless Pelicans rosters never get brought up ever.

It felt like most people kind of forgot that Jrue Holiday even existed when he was in New Orleans. The story of that time was how great Anthony Davis is, how bad the team he had around him was, how New Orleans was failing their generational player, all of this overshadowed a ton of what Holiday did, although for a brief period Holiday was a part of the problem.

When he got there his #s significantly dipped and he had immediate injury issues for those first few years. In 2015-2016 Jrue didn't even start for the Pelicans despite playing 65 games that year. That year with time off the bench he clearly improved his game. It appears the coaching issues really showed themselves that year as Alvin Gentry had taken over for Monty Williams and was figuring the line-ups and team out.

Then 2017-2020 is really when the "Jrue Holiday is underrated" narrative really seemed to peak. He was playing his best years in New Orleans and New Orleans were able to put together a solid team for one year in 2017-2018. Looking at the rosters and guys that went thru NO, it's not a surprise the team failed, the rosters are some of the most random selections of players of any team in that era. Kendrick Perkins, Nate Robinson, Buddy Hield, Christian Wood, Julius Randle, Tony Allen, Nikola Mirotic, Rajon Rondo, the list goes on of just the most classic NBA journeymen falling stars, and random young talent there ever was.

After the 2020 season Milwaukee goes all in on upgrading from Eric Bledsoe and grab Jrue Holiday for the new season. Jrue is then immediately extended and while most people had a reasonable amount of hype, no one really knew how good or bad Jrue Holiday was going to be based on his time in New Orleans. At that point Giannis had been thru the hype machine and was sitting on 2x MVPs and a DPOY, the question was can he win. The Bucks played at a standard 52 game pace in the regular season and were kind of an afterthought due to the Brooklyn Nets super team at the time and the best year of the Simmons/Embiid era in Philadelphia.

The playoffs come and a ton of hype builds for Milwaukee as they thoroughly dismantle Miami. Jrue was actually great in that series, but for the rest of the playoffs that series remained easily the best series for Jrue. It took a ton of injuries to help Milwaukee squeeze past Brooklyn to find a surprise Atlanta squad that would be peaking at this very moment. After this path came another shock as Milwaukee faced Phoenix and Chris Paul in the finals. In those finals, Jrue was honestly getting hard carried by the all time great performance from Giannis with a few Middleton games sprinkled in. It felt like Milwaukee won that game 6 DESPITE Jrue's horrible shooting. No one seems to recall his bad performance, though. What they do recall is the clutch 3 pointer he made to help put the team forward. In the NBA finals Jrue Holiday averaged 16 ppg 9.3 assists and 2.2 steals on 36% FG and 31% from 3. This was the clear flaw of Jrue Holiday that was immediately overlooked because Milwaukee won. Milwaukee won DESPITE Jrue proving that he can be a liability on offense.

The 2022 playoffs come around and Milwaukee is once again the favorites and once again another eerie story pops up. Middleton goes down with injury and Milwaukee must face Boston. Now, on paper you'd think that Jrue Holiday averaging 21 ppg and 6.3 assists for the series is a sign of him stepping up, HOWEVER, that ugly number 36 appears again. 36% FG and 30% from 3. Giannis had to be a superman to keep Milwaukee competitive, but ultimately Milwaukee's lack of offensive firepower cost them immensely, along with Tatum cementing himself as a superstar.

Milwaukee and their fans move on with the expectation that Milwaukee with Middleton is the favorites to do everything. The 2023 playoffs come around and the entire league is shocked as the #1 seeded Milwaukee gets dismantled by #8 Miami. Giannis experiences an injury and plays well below his level. Middleton tries to be the #1 option averaging 24 ppg on solid efficiency, but the same story Jrue Holiday has told every playoffs pops up again. 17.8 ppg on 17 FGA, Holiday's incredibly inconsistent offensive game has showcased itself once again in the playoffs. This was the third strike, everyone had to know it from that moment that Jrue Holiday had shown who he truly is as a player.

He gets traded and now he's in Boston and FINALLY in Boston he seems to be in the correct place for what his skillset is. The #4 best player on a championship team. Jrue Holiday was actually the 4th best player on a championship team miscast as the #3 in Milwaukee. Winning the ring immediately made the entire league forget about the years he wasted away on pointless Pelicans teams. It made people overlook how bad he really was in that game 6. The talk was always "well Holiday is the best defender at his position in the NBA, even if his offense is not there" but the reality is, defense can only do so much and a true superstar is going to make the difficult shots the defense forces them to take. If Holiday cannot pull it together and deliver on the offensive side of the ball, it won't matter if he's guarding the opposing team's best player. The only way to make this work with Jrue is to remove his offensive burden and Boston has done that by putting him on a team with Tatum, Brown and Porzingis.

[Iwasawitness]

Defense only does so much but so does offense. Holiday made the Bucks a championship team. He makes Boston a title contender. I don’t think Holiday is overrated. You just have to make sure you’re bringing him aboard for the right reasons.

[Ben-N1ce]

I dunno. As a Celtics fan he's been as advertised on defense not so much yet in offense. It really comes down to getting to the finals..but that goes for the team in general.