Jrue Holiday’s career year is making a huge difference for the Pelicans

Jrue Holiday won’t be making the All-Star team in 2018, but he’s quietly put together the best season of his career in New Orleans this year. As we approach the one-year anniversary of the trade that brought DeMarcus Cousins to the Pelicans, Holiday has put some early struggles with Cousins behind him to thrive in his new role as the third-best player on the team.

Holiday is posting career bests in every efficiency statistic, stemming from a massive improvement in his shooting at the rim and in mid-range. He’s actually been worse than ever before from beyond the arc but even in a down long-range shooting year, the fact that he’s taking more of those shots than he has in his career to this point helps his efficiency tremendously.

Offensively, Holiday has made the most of his dual pick-and-roll threats in Cousins and Anthony Davis. He ranks in the 60th percentile among all players in overall pick-and-roll offense, aided by his pull-up game and ability to finish with strength at the rim. His strength relative to other guards in the league is his calling card and he’s been able to put it to use on drives to the rim this year:

Holiday splits his time between the two guard positions but is far more effective as a point guard, though it seems that this positional distinction isn’t nearly as important as simply getting Rajon Rondo off the floor: lineups with both Holiday and Rondo have been outscored by 1.4 points per 100 possessions, while exiling Rondo to the bench produces a net rating of +8.6. The Pelicans usually replace Rondo with Ian Clark to create their best lineup: Holiday, Clark, E’Twaun Moore, Davis, and Cousins have posted a +32.6 net rating across 138 possessions and generally feels like a lineup built for the modern NBA. Clark brings another shooter on the floor to surround the Holiday-Davis or Holiday-Cousins pick-and-rolls and make things easier for everybody involved.

In these lineups, Holiday almost always has the benefit of being much bigger than his opposition, which inspires those strong drives and another seldom but very effective component of the Pelicans offense: the Holiday post-up. Out of a traditional Horns look, one of the Pelicans favorite alignments, Holiday’s job is to enter the ball in to one of Davis or Cousins at the elbow, then cut through the middle of the floor to one of the corners. Every so often, he’ll stop short and surprise his defender with a quick post-up:

Defensively, the Pelicans thrive in those same lineups, where they once again excise Rondo from the court to create a better situation for everybody involved. Holiday can use his length to harass opposing point guards, as opposed to having his 7-foot wingspan neutered by a matchup with a shooting guard. Additionally, his effort and effectiveness on ball screens is far superior to Rondo’s, which helps shield his big men from two-on-ones in pick-and-roll. Cousins is especially vulnerable in these situations, where his inconsistent effort can sometimes lead to poor outcomes for the Pelicans. Holiday’s ability to mitigate these occurrences help to bolster a New Orleans defense that allows an astronomically low 95.0 points per 100 possessions when their big three are in the game without Rondo.

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Holiday’s improved play is certainly a large reason why the Pelicans sit just a game and a half out of the fifth seed in the Western Conference and will go a long way toward retaining Cousins this offseason in what will go down as perhaps the most impactful summer in Pelicans’ history. He was given a massive five-year contract last offseason to remain in New Orleans and continue to work things out with the newly-acquired Cousins; halfway through the season, those results are looking up, as Holiday is having the best year of his career and the Pelicans look poised to make some noise in the playoff race in the West.