Holiday Bros.
I’m not going to lie, for years and years I have coveted for the Utah Jazz to have Jrue Holiday on their roster. Unfortunately though, it looks like that opportunity has sailed away.
It was rumored that teams were inquiring about Holiday at the trade deadline, and the Pelicans must have had a pretty hefty asking price for their veteran guard as nothing ever materialized. I wouldn’t want to see the Jazz give up more future assets to get Holiday given his age and injury history.
However, Jrue has a couple of brothers in the league playing for the Indiana Pacers right now. Namely, Aaron Holiday and Justin Holiday.
Last January when the Pacers visited the Wasatch Front, Aaron Holiday thought he had it in him to shut down Donovan Mitchell, and that really got on Don’s nerves to the point of him demanding the ball and attacking Holiday one-on-one.
Really fun battle here between Aaron Holiday and Donovan Mitchell... Holiday trying to establish himself as an elite defender, Mitchell taking the challenge. Mitchell scored 2x in a row, forcing timeout... then got a tech for taunting in the break. All taunting Ts are lame.
— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) January 21, 2020
It was great to watch as a fan, the competitive fire between two world-class athletes going at it. I realize a lot of Jazz Nation might feel that Holiday had no business taking on Donovan like that given that one is an All-Star and the other has barely made it in the league.
But I feel the two would work great together as teammates. The Jazz this year seem to be missing that guy with the “dog” mentality, who doesn’t give up when down by 20 or 30 points and brings the intensity Jimmy Butler brought to the Minnesota Timberwolves practice sessions.
Aaron is really undersized to be paired with Mitchell, standing only 6-feet tall. But his brother Justin is 6-foot-6, and knocked down 42 percent of his triples this season.
Justin Holiday has only played 24 minutes per game this season, but that’s just fine. In all honesty, the Jazz may not need to be looking for a guy that can play 30+ minutes a night as long as they keep Jordan Clarkson as their sixth man.
Justin is an unrestricted free agent this summer (or whenever the NBA decides to hold the free agency period). Last summer the Jazz were able to poach Bojan Bogdanovic from the Indiana Pacers, could it be possible they pull it off two years in a row?